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AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental
Studies and Sciences Series

Series Editor
Wil Burns
Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment, School of International
Service, American University, Washington, DC, USA

Environmental professionals and scholars need resources that can help

them to resolve interdisciplinary issues intrinsic to environmental
management, governance, and research. The AESS branded book series
draws upon a range of disciplinary fields pertinent to addressing
environmental issues, including the physical and biological sciences,
social sciences, engineering, economics, sustainability planning, and
public policy. The rising importance of the interdisciplinary approach is
evident in the growth of interdisciplinary academic environmental
programs, such Environmental Studies and Sciences (ES&S), and
related ‘sustainability studies.’
The growth of interdisciplinary environmental education and
professions, however, has yet to be accompanied by the complementary
development of a vigorous and relevant interdisciplinary
environmental literature. This series addresses this by publishing
books and monographs grounded in interdisciplinary approaches to
issues. It supports teaching and experiential learning in ES&S and
sustainability studies programs, as well as those engaged in
professional environmental occupations in both public and private
sectors.
The series is designed to foster development of publications with
clear and creative integration of the physical and biological sciences
with other disciplines in the quest to address serious environmental
problems. We will seek to subject submitted manuscripts to rigorous
peer review by academics and professionals who share our
interdisciplinary perspectives. The series will also be managed by an
Editorial board of national and internationally recognized
environmental academics and practitioners from a broad array of
environmentally relevant disciplines who also embrace an
interdisciplinary orientation.
More information about this series at http://​www.​springer.​com/​
series/​13637
Editors
Wil Burns, David Dana and Simon James Nicholson

Climate Geoengineering: Science, Law

and Governance
1st ed. 2021
Editors
Wil Burns
Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy, American
University, Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy and Culture
program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

David Dana
Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

Simon James Nicholson

American University, Washington DC, WA, USA

ISSN 2509-9787 e-ISSN 2509-9795

AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series
ISBN 978-3-030-72371-2 e-ISBN 978-3-030-72372-9
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72372-9

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer

Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham,
Switzerland
Contents
Introduction
Wil Burns, David Dana and Simon James Nicholson
Characteristics of a Solar Geoengineering Deployment:​
Considerations for Governance
Douglas G. MacMartin, Peter J. Irvine, Ben Kravitz and
Joshua B. Horton
Climate Action:​The Feasibility of Climate Intervention on a Global
Scale
Kimberly A. Gray
A Moral Framework for Commons-Based Geoengineering
Lisa L. Ferrari and Elizabeth L. Chalecki
A Human Rights Framework for Climate Engineering:​A Response
to the Limits of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Brian Citro and Patrick Taylor Smith
The Role of Human Rights in Implementing CDR Geoengineering
Options in South Africa
Ademola Oluborode Jegede
Geoengineering and the Question of Weakened Resolve
David A. Dana
Using Renewable Energy Policies to Develop Carbon Dioxide
Removal
Anthony E. Chavez
Associated and Incremental Storage: Opportunities for Increased
CO2 Removal with Enhanced Oil Recovery
Tara Righetti
Regulating Geoengineering:​International Competition and
Cooperation
Soheil Shayegh, Garth Heutel and Juan Moreno-Cruz
Geoengineering and the Evolution of Dueling Precautions
Kalyani Robbins
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Burns et al. (eds.), Climate Geoengineering: Science, Law and Governance, AESS
Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72372-9_1

Introduction
Wil Burns1 , David Dana2 and Simon James Nicholson3
(1) Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy and Culture Program,
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
(2) Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
(3) School of International Service, Washington, DC, USA

Wil Burns
Email: [email protected]

This book grew out of a conference held under the auspices of the
Northwestern University Center on Law, Business and Economics,
formerly the Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth.
We would like to thank the Center at the outset for bringing together
many of the contributors to this volume to workshop some of the topics
in this book.

The Paris Agreement’s entry into force in November of 2016 was hailed
as a hallmark achievement by the world community in addressing what
many believe is the greatest existential global threat of this century and
beyond, climate change.1 In seeking to avoid some of the most serious
potential climatic impacts for human institutions and ecosystems, the
Agreement, inter alia, calls for “[h]olding the increase in the global
average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and
to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-
industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the
risks and impacts of climate change.”2 To operationalize this goal, the
Agreement also calls upon the parties to “aim to reach global peaking of
greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and to undertake rapid
reductions thereafter in accordance with best available science, so as to
achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and
removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this
century.”3
However, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)4 made
by the Parties to Paris to date put us on track to exhaust the remaining
“carbon budget” to hold temperatures to below 1.5 °C by 2030, and
2.0 °C within 35–41 years.5 Indeed, the current NDCs place us on an
emissions trajectory by which temperatures will reach 2.6–3.7 °C above
pre-industrial levels by 2100,6 and continue to increase for centuries
beyond due to the substantial inertia of the climate system.7 It’s
daunting to note that the policy ambitions in the NDCs would have to
triple to put them in line with the Paris Agreement’s 2 °C goal.8
Moreover, a recent study concluded that only seven of 25 major
emitting States are meeting their tepid pledges, potentially leading to
temperature increases of as much a 4.4 °C above pre-industrial levels
by 2100.9 Temperature increases that exceed the Paris temperature
target by this magnitude would have extremely serious consequences
for human institutions and natural ecosystems.10
The sobering reality of the disconnect between the resolve of the
world community to effectively address climate change, and what
actually needs to be done, has led to increasing impetus for
consideration of a suite of approaches collectively known as “climate
geoengineering,” or “climate engineering.” Indeed, the feckless response
of the world community to climate change has transformed climate
geoengineering from a fringe concept to a potentially mainstream
policy option.11
Climate geoengineering is defined broadly by the UK’s Royal Society
as “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary
environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.”12 Climate
geoengineering technologies are usually divided into two broad
categories, solar radiation management approaches (SRM) and carbon
dioxide removal approaches (CDR).13
SRM options could be used to reduce the amount of solar radiation
absorbed by the Earth (pegged at approximately 235 W m−2
currently14) by an amount sufficient to offset the increased trapping of
infrared radiation by rising levels of greenhouse gases.15 Alternatively,
SRM options could be deployed at a smaller scale to offset only a
proportion of projected warming.16 By contrast, carbon dioxide
removal options seek to remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, either by enhancing natural sinks for carbon, or deploying
chemical engineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.17
This, in turn, can increase the amount of long-wave radiation emitted
by Earth back to space, reducing radiative forcing, thus, exerting a
cooling effect.18
Examples of SRM approaches include stratospheric aerosol injection
(SAI), which seeks to enhance planetary albedo (and thus negative
forcing) through the injection of a gas such as sulfur dioxide, or another
gas that will ultimately react chemically in the stratosphere to form
sulfate aerosols19; marine cloud brightening (MCB), which seeks to
increase the albedo of maritime clouds through seeding with seawater
droplets,20 and space-based methods seeking to reduce the amount of
solar radiation reaching the Earth by positioning sun-shields in space to
reflect or deflect radiation.21
CDR technologies include bioenergy and carbon capture and storage
(BECCS), a process by which biomass is converted to heat, electricity, or
liquid or gas fuels, coupled with carbon dioxide capture and
sequestration (CCS),22 ocean iron fertilization, a process for dispersing
iron in iron-deficient regions of the world’s oceans regions to stimulate
phytoplankton production, thus potentially enhancing carbon dioxide
uptake,23 increasing ocean alkalinity, and thus carbon dioxide uptake,
by adding substances such as lime or olivine to oceans or in coastal
regions,24 direct air capture (DAC), a process to extract carbon dioxide
from ambient air in a closed-loop industrial process,25 terrestrial
enhanced mineral weathering, a process to accelerate the uptake of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by magnesium and calcium-rich
rocks,26 and afforestation and reforestation initiatives,27 and efforts to
increase sequestration of carbon dioxide in soils.28
Field research on most climate geoengineering options is currently
either at an early stage, or has not even begun. However, preliminary
research indicates that both SRM and CDR approaches could potentially
help to ameliorate warming and the climatic impacts of burgeoning
greenhouse gas emissions. For example, recent studies have concluded
that large-scale deployment of SRM approaches could begin to return
temperatures to pre-industrial levels within a few years of
deployment,29 and potentially restore temperatures to pre-industrial
conditions by the end of this century.30 The vast majority of mitigation
scenarios developed in integrated assessment models under which
temperatures are kept to 2 °C or below contemplate extensive
deployment of CDR technologies during the course of this century,31
with bioenergy and carbon capture and storage cited as the primary
option.32 Global climate models project that the globe may need
removal of between 700–1000 GtCO2 between 2011–2100 to stabilize
temperatures at either 1.5C or 2.0C above pre-industrial levels.33 There
has been increasing recognition by policymakers to incorporate that
into their climate planning processes. For example, the European
Commission’s proposals for a long-term EU climate strategy envisions
economy-wide net-negative emissions in the second half of this
century.34
However, climate geoengineering approaches may also pose serious
risks to society and ecosystems. For example, the SRM option of
stratospheric aerosol injection (as well as marine cloud brightening)
could alter global hydrological cycles, potentially modifying the Asian
and African monsoons, “impacting the food supply to billions of
people,”35 and visiting “humanitarian disasters” upon such regions.36
Large-scale deployment of SAI geoengineering options could also delay
recovery of the ozone layer for 30–70 years or more,37 increase sulfuric
acid deposition in the troposphere, with potential negative implications
for both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems,38 and potentially lead to an
increase in summer heat extremes in high-northern latitude regions
during the boreal summer.39 Moreover, SRM deployment could result in
serious geopolitical tensions or conflict should it be pursued
unilaterally.40
On the CDR side of the equation, many of the contemplated
technologies and techniques could also pose serious risks, especially at
large-scales of deployment. For example, ocean iron fertilization could
result in shifts in community composition that could threaten the
integrity of ocean ecosystems.41 Large-scale deployment of bioenergy
and carbon capture and storage could divert large swathes of land from
food production, imperiling food security for vulnerable populations,42
It could also result in large land grabs,43 and threaten biodiversity.44
Enhanced mineral weathering could pose risks to agricultural
applications by releasing potentially toxic levels of chromium and
nickel,45 could pose potential threats to human health through
inhalation of ultrafine particles,46 and might adversely impact ocean
environments through substantially altering biogeochemical cycles.47
At the same time, business as usual scenarios for climate change
also pose grave threats to the world community.48 This emphasizes the
need for a full-throated assessment of society’s options, including
pertinent metrics to evaluate trade-offs. This includes focusing on
critical issues of law and governance, including the management risks,
which is the focus of many of the chapters in this book.
As a number of commentators have noted, climate geoengineering
could pose a wide variety of thorny global legal and governance issues
over the course of the next few decades.49 Common across the
spectrum of CDR and SRM approaches is the need to manage the
emergence of high-risk/high-reward technological options. This entails
steering between the potential hazards associated with different use
scenarios for the various approaches, while at the same time fostering
needed research and innovation. In addition, it makes little sense to
look at climate geoengineering in a vacuum. No climate geoengineering
option offers a single-shot fix for climate change, but rather at best will
be some small component of humanity’s overall efforts to ameliorate
and adapt to climate disruption. This means that evaluation and
governance of climate geoengineering approaches must happen
alongside the full suite of available and potential climate change
response options.
At the same time, the interaction of climate geoengineering
approaches with other means to address climate change gives rise to
one of the most-discussed risks associated with climate
geoengineering. This is the “moral hazard” or “mitigation deterrence”
risk – basically, that climate geoengineering might serve as a willful or
inadvertent distraction from work to stem greenhouse gas emissions.
For some, this risk is serious enough that even contemplation of climate
geoengineering options is a bad idea. Others have argued that climate
geoengineering is inherently ungovernable or that climate
geoengineering will serve to entrench the social and economic
dynamics that have given rise to climate change. For people in this “no
climate geoengineering” camp, governance of climate geoengineering
means imposing moratoria or exceedingly strict limitations on
research.
“No climate geoengineering” is one pole along the climate
geoengineering governance spectrum. A range of other positions exist,
concerned to varying degrees with enabling climate geoengineering
research and potential deployment and guarding against various
attendant risks. Such perspectives share a faith that climate
geoengineering approaches can be governed using institutions and
instruments currently available or newly developed.
For this broad “climate geoengineering ought to be explored”
coalition, a new consensus is emerging that the label “climate
geoengineering” has outstayed its welcome. Instead, it makes more
sense, in governance terms, to distinguish SRM from CDR, since these
two distinct buckets of climate change response would operate, if
developed and used at scale, in quite different ways with quite different
risks. Moreover, there is a need to distinguish within each of the broad
buckets. Stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening
are both forms of SRM that would require the dispersal of materials
into the atmosphere. SAI, though, would have a variegated global
impact if utilized at any meaningful scale, while MCB might be utilized
to have a localized or regionalized set of primary impacts. Moreover, the
two different approaches call for different kinds of materials dispersed
into different layers of the atmosphere, with the materials falling out at
different rates. These kinds of distinctions matter for the kinds of
specific forms of oversight and management that will need to be
developed.
Many of the chapters in this book address issues of this nature, as
well as others pertinent to governance of these emerging technologies,
including the role of human rights and the interface of domestic and
international law.
 Douglas MacMartin, Peter Irvine, Ben Kravitz, and Joshua Horton
initially consider how the decisions that need to be made around the
deployment of solar geoengineering ought to influence and impact the
design of governance arrangements. Solar geoengineering, they
contend, is not just a yes or no proposition. Instead, there is a variety of
parameters that could each be manipulated in ways that would allow
some tailoring of a solar geoengineering intervention. Ideally,
governance arrangements would need to be attentive to and responsive
to these parameters and, moreover, to the fact that the parameters
would need to be tweaked through time. Time, though, becomes its own
governance challenge. This is because while some feedback from a
geoengineering climate system would reveal itself quickly, other forms
of feedback would only become clear over many years. This suggests
forms of governance that can take swift action if more or less
geoengineering is suddenly required, but that can also demonstrate
extraordinary patience.
Kimberly Gray situates the debate over geoengineering in the larger
context of the planetary climate system and the array of options
available to address anthropogenic climate change. First, Gray
emphasizes that the earth is a complex system, and that highly
engineered solutions – solutions that flow from what she dubs “an
engineering mentality” to the natural world - quite often founder in the
face of that complexity. Gray then reviews the options to address
climate change and concludes that mitigation is technically feasible, but
it seems not so politically. Specifically, Gray explains that there “are an
enormous number of mitigation actions and a plethora of synergies and
cascading benefits to be exploited among mitigation, ecologically based
CDR and adaptation endeavors.” Gray views geoengineering of direct air
capture, solar radiation management or glacier containment as
quintessential expressions of the engineering mentality she critiques –
a mentality that assumes away the complexities of the natural world. As
Gray explains, these would be the “‘mother of all engineering projects’
for three basic reasons – the massive scale at which the technologies
must be deployed, the need to integrate these actions with mitigation,
adaptation and other CDR measures and the necessity of maintaining
flexible designs since they will have to be adjusted as we learn how the
climate system responds.” In the end, Gray’s analysis is a plea that
political leaders embrace mitigation and adaptation so that we are not
forced to embrace geoengineering, which she characterizes as
“emergency, life-support engineering at a technological, economic and
political scale that defies both logic and perhaps, feasibility.”
Lisa Ferrari and Elizabeth Chalecki provide, for geoengineering, a
moral framework based on just war theory. Their concern is with what
they call “commons-based geoengineering” – that is, geoengineering
responses to climate change that can or would need to be deployed in
the global commons, thereby ensuring transboundary impacts and
potentially global environmental change. Wide-ranging geoengineering
interventions have much in common, they contend, with the conduct of
warfare, such that the ethical strictures and legal codes that have grown
to shape and constrain war may have lessons for those contemplating
geoengineering. The upshot is translation of a set of just war criteria
into a parallel set of “just geoengineering” criteria, to guide States in the
ethical consideration of large-scale geoengineering options.
Brian Citro and Patrick Smith engage the important question of
what normative framework should be employed to specify nation’s
obligations with respect to geoengineering. Citro and Smith argue that
normative framework that has dominated public policy discussions
regarding geoengineering to date has explicitly or implicitly been cost-
benefit analysis, which they critique as inadequate. As an alternative,
Citro and Smith propose a human rights framework, according to which
nations would have both procedural and substantive human rights
obligations. In a human rights framework, nations would focus on
vulnerable or marginalized groups, prioritize nondiscrimination,
require that affected communities participate in decision-making
processes that impact their lives, and assign duties, accountability, and
remedies for human rights violations. Citro and Smith acknowledge
that sometimes human rights obligations might contradict one another
in the geoengineering context, and that, especially as to substantive
obligations, there may be a lack of clarity as to the content of the
obligations in the first place. Building on this acknowledgement, Citro
and Smith sketch out an approach by which competing human rights
claims could be prioritized.
Ademola Jegede’s chapter looks at CDR in the South African context.
In particular, he is interested in the opportunities and challenges CDR
options present for the fulfillment of human rights in South Africa, and,
in turn, how international and domestic human rights laws might
provide guidance for the use (or not) have CDR options. Jegede’s
assessment is mixed. The chapter shows that there are significant
uncertainties when it comes to whether and how South Africa could
make use of CDR options. In addition, there are uncertainties and
limitations when it comes to the kinds of guidance that can be found in
human rights instruments and principles. This is because a given CDR
option can at once promote and undermine a variety of different rights.
The message of the chapter is that great care must be taken if CDR is to
be compatible with the rights and needs of South Africa’s citizens.
One question about geoengineering governance is whether and how
devices or approaches used in other governance regime might be
adapted to geoengineering. Pursuing this question, Anthony Chavez’s
chapter addresses two ways governments can incentivize the
development of geoengineering technologies. Noting that none of the
current technologies with respect to Carbon Direct Removal (CDR) now
seem feasible at the scale needed to have a major impact on carbon
levels, Chavez argues that governments must incentivize improvements
in current CDR technologies, as well as the creation of new
technologies. Chavez explores the potential of two legal devices that
various governments in the United States and Europe have used to
promote the development of renewable energy technologies –
renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) and feed-in-tariffs (FITs). Both
RPSs and FITs make financially feasible the deployment of energy
sources that otherwise might not be adopted. Chavez reviews the
advantages and disadvantages of these devices generally and of
extending them to CDR; he concludes that, in the CDR context, RPSs and
FITs would work best if they were adopted and implemented together.
One advantage of Chavez’s recommended approach would be that it
would not necessarily require governments to predetermine which
CDR technologies deserve the most investment, but rather would
support a multitude of approaches in different jurisdictions, just as
RPSs in the United States have supported a very wide range of
renewable energy technologies. Chavez thus seeks to harness what we
have learned from policies regarding renewable energy development
for fashioning the optimal geoengineering law and policy.
 David Dana writes of what he calls the “question of weakened
resolve.” His concern is with whether and how contemplation or
development of geoengineering options might weaken efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Dana argues that the question of weakened
resolve is of most importance among elite decisionmakers, since it is
elite action of various stripes that will ultimately determine whether
and how geoengineering impacts emissions abatement activities. The
chapter reviews existing socio-psychological work and finds it lacking,
for its focus on publics rather than elites and for its being confined to
the United States and a small number of countries in Europe. Dana calls
for more and broader efforts to understand the question of weakened
resolve. The chapter closes with ideas about how to conduct research
and how to guide public and elite consideration of geoengineering to
lessen the likelihood of weakened resolve.
Tara Rhighetti’s chapter focuses on one particular form of
geoengineering – carbon storage, and in particular storage in
connection with the burning of oil for energy. Rhigetti argues that there
are substantial opportunities for the expanded use of carbon storage as
a response to the threat of climate change. Indeed, Rhighetti notes that
carbon storage in connection with energy production is already taking
place, albeit on a very limited scale. Rhigetti argues that next
generation technologies can make storage a more feasible strategy, and
that such technologies need to be encouraged. However, for carbon
storage to be achieve the desired scale, legal and regulatory
modifications are required. State level property law needs to address
the question of subsurface trespass and other boundary issues raised
by storage. Expanded carbon storage also requires that state law
address issues of long term environmental and tort liability and
transition of ongoing monitoring responsibilities. The potential of
storage can be further achieved through implementation of programs
that discourage or prohibit the use of natural CO2, and which create
incentives for the transportation and use of CO2 from anthropogenic
and direct air capture sources.
Soheil Shayegh, Garth Heutel, and Juan Moreno-Cruz take a
modeling approach to the study of international cooperation regarding
climate policy when solar geoengineering is a policy option available to
nations. Their chapter utilizes two different types of models. First, the
authors use an analytical theoretical model to show how the
equilibrium levels of emissions abatement and geoengineering are
affected by the level of cooperation between countries. This model
indicates that cooperation between countries leads to lower emissions
and more geoengineering. To quantify these results, the authors
modified a numerical integrated assessment model, DICE, to include
solar geoengineering and cooperation among nations. Their simulation
results show that the effect of cooperation on policy depends crucially
on whether damages from geoengineering are local or global. With
local damages, more cooperation leads to more geoengineering, but the
opposite is true for global damages.
Finally, Kalyani Robbins’ chapter engages the important question of
how the precautionary principle – rhetorically at least, a cornerstone of
international environmental law and discourse – should be understood
in the context of geoengineering. Robbins reviews the literature
regarding the precautionary principle, which, as she explains, boils
down to the idea that a cautious course should be preferred to human
actions that carry with them a substantial uncertainty of disastrous
consequences. Given the uncertainties regarding harms associated with
known forms of geoengineering, the precautionary principle would
seem to counsel against the deployment of geoengineering. On the
other hand, given the enormous harms associated with anthropogenic
climate change, the precautionary principle arguably favors the
deployment of geoengineering. Thus, geoengineering presents an
instance of what Robbins dubs dueling precautions. Robbins explains
that, in assessing which of two precautionary courses is in fact the most
precautionary, the relative certainty of harms matters. Thus, now,
Robbins suggests, a precautionary approach arguably disfavors
deployment of geoengineering. But as nations continue to fail to adopt
climate change mitigation, to the point where mitigation no longer
seems possible in time to avoid disastrous climate change scenarios, a
precautionary approach would support – indeed perhaps mandate –
the deployment of geoengineering.
Climate geoengineering is a dynamic and highly variegated field.
This book does not seek to capture all of the facets of the current
debates, but it our hope that it highlights some of the emerging issues
that society, including the legal community must grapple with as we
determine what role, if any, these approaches will play in addressing
climate change.

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Footnotes
1 Fiona Harvey, Paris Climate Change Agreement Enters into Force, The Guardian,
Nov. 3, 2016, https://​www.​theguardian.​c om/​environment/​2016/​nov/​04/​paris-
climate-change-agreement-enters-into-force, site visited on Feb. 15, 2017; Natalya D.
Gallo, et al., Ocean commitments under the Paris Agreement, 7 Nature Climate
Change 833, 833 (2017). The Agreement has been ratified 189 Parties to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to date, UNFCCC, Paris
Agreement – Status of Ratification, https://​unfccc.​int/​process/​the-paris-agreement/​
status-of-ratification, encompassing more than 97% of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions, World Resources Institute, Paris Agreement Tracker, https://​c ait.​wri.​org/​
source/​ratification/​# ?​lang=​en. Of course, a blow has been dealt to the Agreement by
the decision of the largest industrial greenhouse emitters, the United States, to
withdraw from Paris, which will take place on November 4, 2020, Michael M.
Pompeo, Press Statement, U.S. Department of States, On the U.S. Withdrawal from the
Paris Agreement, November 4, 2019, https://​www.​state.​gov/​on-the-u-s-withdrawal-
from-the-paris-agreement/​; US formally starts withdrawal from Paris climate
accord, Euractiv, Nov. 4, 2019, https://​www.​euractiv.​c om/​section/​c limate-
environment/​news/​us-formally-starts-withdrawal-from-paris-climate-accord/​

2 The Paris Agreement, FCCC/CP/2015/L.9, Conference of the Parties, 21st Session

(2015), at art. 2(1)(a).

3 Id. at art. 4(1).

4 Id. at art. 3.

5 Samer Fawzy, et al., Strategies for mitigation of climate change: a review, 18 Envtl.
Chemistry Letters 2069, 2072 (2020); Andrew Freedman & Chris Mooney, Earth’s
carbon dioxide levels hit record high, despite coronavirus-related emissions drop,
Washington Post, June 4, 2020, https://​www.​washingtonpost.​c om/​weather/​2020/​
06/​04/​c arbon-dioxide-record-2020/​; Phillip Goodwin, et al., Pathways to 1.5 °C and
2 °C warming based on observational and geological constraints, 11 Nature Geosci.
102, 104 (2018).

6 Mathias Fridahl & Mariliis Lehtveer, Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
(BECCS): Global potential, investment preferences, and deployment barriers, 42 Energy
Res. & Soc. Sci. 155, 155 (2018); Joeri Rogelj, et al., Paris Agreement Climate Proposals
Need a Boost to Keep Warming Well Below 2 °C, 534 Nature 631, 634 (2016); Climate
Action Tracker, Paris Agreement: Stage Set to Ramp up Climate Action, Dec. 12, 2015,
http://​c limateactiontra​c ker.​org/​news/​257/​Paris-Agreement-stage-set-to-ramp-up-
climate-action.​html, site visited on Feb. 15, 2017; World Resources Institute, Why are
INDC Studies Reaching Different Temperature Estimates?, http://​www.​wri.​org/​blog/​
2015/​11/​insider-why-are-indc-studies-reaching-different-temperature-estimates,
site visited on Feb. 15, 2017.

7 Peter U. Clark, et al., Consequences of Twenty-First Century Policy for Multi-

Millennial Climate and Sea-Level Change, 6 Nature Climate Change 360, 361 (2016).

8 Bipartisan Policy Center, Investing in Climate Innovation: The Environmental Case

for Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide, May 2020, at 7, https://​bipartisanpolicy​.​org/​
report/​investing-in-climate-innovation-the-environmental-case-for-direct-air-
capture-of-carbon-dioxide/​

9 Noah Sachs, The Paris Agreement in the 2020s: Breakdown or Breakup?, 46(1) Eco.
L.Q. 865, 893 (2019); Some Progress Since Paris, But Not Enough, as Governments
Amble Towards 3 °C of Warming,
Climate Action Tracker (Dec. 11, 2018), https://​c limateactiontra​c ker.​org/​
publications/​warmingprojectio​ns-
global-update-dec-2018/. See also, Kevin Anderson, et al., A factor of two: how the
mitigation plans of ‘climate progressive’ nations fall far short of Paris compliant
pathways, 20(10) Climate Pol’y 1290–1304 (2020).

10 Climate Change 2014, Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers, UNFCCC

(2014),
at 18–19, http://​www.​ipcc.​c h/​pdf/​assessment-report/​ar5/​syr/​A R5_​SYR_​FINAL_​
SPM.​pdf, site visited on Jan. 16, 2016; Report of the Conference of the Parties on its
nineteenth session, held in Warsaw from 11
to 23 Nov. 2013, Further Advancing the Durban Platform, UNFCCC (Jan. 31, 2014),
at CP/2013/10,
¶ 2(b); INDCs as Communicated by Parties, UNFCCC, http://​www4.​unfccc.​int/​
submissions/​
indc/Submission%20Pages/submissions.aspx, site last visited Dec. 29, 2016; V.
Ramanathan & Y. Feng, On Avoiding Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference with the
Climate System: Formidable Challenges Ahead, 105(3) PNAS 14245, 14,245 (2008).
11 Netherlands, Norway, Norway, Sweden, Non-Paper on Carbon Capture and
Storage, Klima-, Energi- og Forsyningsudvalget 2020–21 KEF Alm.del - Bilag 87
Offentligt (2020); Robin Gregory, Terre Satterfield & Ariel Hasell, Using Decision
Pathway Surveys to Inform Climate Engineering Policy Choices, 113 PNAS 560, 560
(2016); Shinichiro Asayama, Catastrophism Toward ‘Opening Up’ or ‘Closing Down’?
Going Beyond the Apocalyptic Future and Geoengineering, 63(1) Current Sociology
89, 90 (2015). For a history of geoengineering over the past fifty years, see Wil Burns
& Simon Nicholson, Governing Climate Geoengineering, in New Earth Politics 345–
50 (Simon Nicholson & Sikina Jinnah eds., 2016).

12 The Royal Society, Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and

Uncertainty (2009), at 11. http://​royalsociety.​org/​Geoengineering-the-climate/​, site
visited on Jan. 16, 2017.

13 William C.G. Burns, Geoengineering the Climate: An Overview of Solar Radiation

Management Options, 46 Tulsa L. Rev. 283, 286 (2012).

14 J.T. Kiehl & Kevin E. Trenberth, Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget, 78(2)
Bull. Am. Meteorological Soc’y 197, 198 (1997), http://​c limateknowledge​.​org/​
figures/​Rood_​C limate_​C hange_​AOSS480_​Documents/​K iehl_​Trenberth_​R adiative_​
Balance_​BAMS_​1997.​pdf, site visited on Feb. 2, 2017.

15 Samer Fawzy, et al., Strategies for mitigation of climate change: a review, 18 Envtl.
Chemistry Letters 2069, 2086 (2020).

16 David W. Keith & Peter J. Irvine, Solar geoengineering could substantially reduce
climate risks – A Research hypothesis for the next decade, 4 Earth’s Future 549, 552
(2016).

17 Timothy Lenton, The Global Potential for Carbon Dioxide Removal,

Geoengineering of the Climate System 53 (Roy Harrison & Ron Hester eds.,
2014).
18 T.M. Lenton & N.E. Vaughan, The Radiative Forcing Potential of Different Climate
Geoengineering Options, 9 Atmos. Chem. Phys. 5539, 5540 (2009).

19 Sean Low & Matthias Honegger, A Precautionary Assessment of Systematic

Projections and Promises From Sunlight Reflection and Carbon Removal Model
Modeling, Risk Analysis 1, 1 (2020) Peter J. Irvine, et al., An Overview of the Earth
System Science of Solar Geoengineering, WIREs Climate Change, doi:
10.1002/2 cc.423 (2016), at 7.

20 John Latham, et al., Global Temperature Stabilization via Controlled Albedo

Enhancement of Low-Level Maritime Clouds, 366 Phil. Transactions Royal Soc’y
3969, 3970 (2008); Keith Bower, et al., Computations Assessment of a Proposed
Technique for Global Warming Mitigation via Albedo-Enhancement of Marine
Stratocumulus Clouds, 82(1–2) Atmospheric Res. 328, 329 (2006).

21 Takanobu Kosugi, Role of Sunshades in Space as a Climate Control Option, 67 Acta

Astronautica 241, 242 (2010).

22 Joris Kornneeff, et al., Global Potential for Biomass and Carbon Dioxide Capture,
Transport and Storage up to 2050, 11 Int’l J. Greenhouse Gas Control 117, 119
(2012); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Carbon Dioxide Capture and
Sequestration, http://​www3.​epa.​gov/​c limatechange/​c cs/​# CO2Capture, site visited
on Feb. 17, 2017.

23 Matthew Hubbard, Barometer Rising: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety as a

Model for Holistic International Regulation of Ocean Fertilization Projects and Other
Forms of Geoengineering, 40 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol’y Rev. 591, 598 (2016);
Christine Bertram, Ocean Iron Fertilization in the Context of the Kyoto Protocol and the
Post-Kyoto Process, 8 Energy Pol’y 1130, 1130 (2010).

24 Wil Burns & Charles R. Corbett, Antacids for the Sea? Artificial Ocean
 Alkalinization and Climate Change, 3 One Earth 154–56 (2020); Andrew Lenton,
et al., Assessing carbon dioxide removal through global and regional ocean alkalization
under high and low emission pathways,.9 Earth Sys. Dynamics 339–257 (2018).

25 Robert Socolow, et al., Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Chemicals (2011), American
Physical Society, at 7–9, https://​www.​aps.​org/​policy/​reports/​assessments/​upload/​
dac2011.​pdf, site visited on Feb. 14, 2017; R. Stuart Haszeldine, Can CCS and NETs
Enable the Continued Use of Fossil Carbon Fuels after CoP21?, 32(2) Oxford Rev. Econ.
Pol’y 304, 310 (2016).

26 David J. Beerling, et al., Potential for large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock
weathering with croplands, 583 Nature 242–62 (2020); P. Renforth, et al., The
dissolution of olivine added to soil: Implications for enhanced weathering, 61 Applied
Geochemistry 109–118 (2015).

27 Jean Francois-Bastin, et al., The global tree restoration potential, 365 Sci. 76–79
(2019); Matthew E. Fagin, et al., How Feasible are global forest restoration goals?, 13(3)
Conservation Letters 1–8 (2020), https://​doi.​org/​10.​1111/​c onl.​12700

28 Xiongxiong Bai, et al., Responses of soil carbon sequestration to climate-smart

agriculture practices: A meta-analysis, 25 Global Change Bio. 2591–2606 (2019).

29 The Royal Society, supra note 12, at 34.

30 David P. Keller, Ellias Y. Feng & Andreas Oschlies, Potential Climate Engineering
Effectiveness and Side Effects During a High Carbon Dioxide-Emission Scenario, Nature
Comm., Feb. 25, 2014, DOI: https://​doi.​org/​10.​1038/​ncomms4304, at 5-6, http://​
www.​nature.​c om/​ncomms/​2014/​140225/​ncomms4304/​pdf/​ncomms4304.​pdf, site
visited on Feb. 14, 2017.

31 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report, Working

Group III, Ch. 6, Assessing Transformation Pathways, at 93; Giulia Realmonte, et al., An
inter-model assessment of the role of direct air capture in deep mitigation pathways, 10
Nature Communications, 3277 (2019), at 3; Etsushi Kato & Yoshiki Yamagata,
BECCS Capability of Dedicated Bioenergy Crops under a Future Land-Use Scenario
Targeting Net Negative Carbon Emissions, 2 Earth’s Future 421, 421 (2014).

32 Fridahl & Lehtveer, supra note 6, at 155; T. Gasser, et al., Negative Emissions
Physically Needed to Keep Global Warming Below 2 °C, 6 Nature Comm., Art. No. 7958
(2015), at 5; See also José Roberto Moreira, et al., BECCS Potential in Brazil: Achieving
Negative Emissions in Ethanol and Electricity Production Based on Sugar Cane Bagasse
and Other Residues, 179 Applied Energy 55, 56 (2016) (BECCS “will play a vital role
in reaching the required level of emission reductions in the future”); Sabine Fuss,
Betting on Negative Emissions, 4 Nature Climate Change 850, 850 (2014).

33 James Mulligan, et al., Technological Carbon Removal in the United States 5 (Sept.
2018), https://​www.​wri.​org/​publication/​tech-carbon-removal-usa

34 Wilfried Rickels, et al., The Future of (Negative) Emissions Trading in the European
Union, Kiel Working Paper, No. 2164 (2020), at 5, https://​www.​ifw-kiel.​de/​experts/​
ifw/​wilfried-rickels/​the-future-of-negative-emissions-trading-in-the-european-
union-15070/​

35 The Royal Society, supra note 12, at 31. See also Charles C. Gertler, Weakening of
the Extratropical Storm Tracks in Solar Geoengineering Scenarios, 47 Geophysical
Res. Letters 1–9, e2020GL087348 (2020).

36 Holly Jean Buck, Geoengineering: Re-Making Climate for Profit or Humanitarian

Intervention?, 43(1) Dev. & Change 253, 255 (2011).

37 Simone Tilmes, Rolf Mü ller & Ross Salawitch, The Sensitivity of Polar Ozone
Depletion to Proposed Geoengineering Schemes, 320 Sci. 1201, 1204 (2008). See also
Khara D. Grieger, et al., Emerging risk governance for stratospheric aerosol injection as
a climate management technology, 39 Env’t Systems & Decisions 371, 372 (2019).
38 Grieger et al., supra note 37, at 2; MIT, The Unintended Consequences of Sulfate
Aerosols in the Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere, Department of Civil Engineering
(2009), at 11, https://​zerogeoengineeri​ng.​c om/​2016/​unintended-consequences-
sulfate-aerosols-troposphere-lower-stratosphere/​

39 Katherine Dagon & Daniel P. Shrag, Regional Climate Variability Under Model
Simulations of Solar Geoengineering, 122 J. Geophysical Res., Atmospheres 12,106,
12, 112 (2017).

40 Anna Lou Abatayo, et al., Solar geoengineering may lead to excessive cooling and
high strategic uncertainty, PNAS Latest Articles (2020), at 5, https://​www.​pnas.​
org/​c ontent/​early/​2020/​05/​28/​1916637117, The Royal Society, Solar radiation
management: the governance of research 16 (2011), https://​royalsociety.​org/​topics-
policy/​projects/​solar-radiation-governance/​report/​

41 R.S. Lampitt, et al., Ocean Fertilization: A Potential Means of Geoengineering?, 366

Phil. Trans. R. Soc’y 3919, 3925 (2008).

42 Pete Smith, et al., Biophysical and Economic Limits to Negative CO2 Emissions, 6
Nature Climate Change 42, 46 (2016). See also Phil Williamson, Scrutinize CO2
Removal Methods, 530 Nature 153, 154 (2016); Markus Bonsch, et al., Trade-offs
Between Land and Water Requirements for Large-Scale Bioenergy Production, 8 GCB
Bioenergy 11, 11 (2014).

43 Lorenzo Catula, Nat Dyer & Sonja Vermeulen, Fuelling Exclusion? The Biofuels
Boom and Poor People’s Access to Land, International Institute for the Environment
and Development and Food and Agriculture Organization, at 14, http://​pubs.​iied.​org/​
pdfs/​12551IIED.​pdf, site visited on Feb. 15, 2017.

44 Andrew Wiltshire & T. Davies-Barnard, Planetary Limits to BECCS Negative

Emissions, AVOID2, Mar. 2015, at 15, http://​avoid-net-uk.​c c.​ic.​ac.​uk/​wp-content/​
uploads/​delightful-downloads/​2015/​07/​P lanetary-limits-to-BECCS-negative-
emissions-AVOID-2_​W PD2a_​v 1.​1.​pdf, site visited on Jan. 14, 2017.
45 Mike E. Kelland, et al., Increased yield and CO2 sequestration potential with the C4
cereal Sorghum bicolor cultivated in basaltic rock dust-amended agricultural soil, 26
Global Change Bio. 3658, 3659 (2020).

46 Romany M. Webb, The Law of Enhanced Weathering for Carbon Dioxide Removal,
Columbia Law School, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (2020), at 31, https://​
climate.​law.​c olumbia.​edu/​sites/​default/​files/​c ontent/​Webb%20​-%20​The%20​
Law%20​of%20​Enhanced%20​Weathering%20​for%20​C O2%20​Removal%20​-%20​
Sept.​%20​2020.​pdf, site visited on January 6, 2021.

47 Jens Hartmann, et al., Enhanced Chemical Weathering as a Geoengineering

Strategic to Reduce Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Supply Nutrients, and Mitigate Ocean
Acidification, 51 Rev. Geophys. 113, 113 (2013).

48 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summary for Policymakers, Climate

Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1–28 (2013),
http://​www.​ipcc.​c h/​pdf/​assessment-report/​ar5/​wg1/​WG1AR5_​SPM_​FINAL.​pdf, site
visited on May 7, 2018; NASA, The Consequences of Climate Change, Vital Signs of the
Planet, https://​c limate.​nasa.​gov/​effects/​, site visited on May 7, 2018.

49 Peter J. Irvine & David W. Keith, Halving warming with stratospheric aerosol
geoengineering moderates policy-relevant climate hazards, 15 Envt’l Research
Letters (202), 044011, at 4; Mason Inman, Planning for Plan B, Nature Reports
Climate Change, Dec. 17, 2009, http://​www.​nature.​c om/​c limate/​2010/​1001/​full/​
climate.​2010.​135.​html, site visited on Jan. 19, 2017; Scott Barrett, Solar
Geoengineering’s Brave New World: Thoughts on the Governance of an Unprecedented
Technology, 8(2) Rev. Envt’l Econ. & Pol’y 249, 266 (2014).
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Burns et al. (eds.), Climate Geoengineering: Science, Law and Governance, AESS
Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72372-9_2

Characteristics of a Solar
Geoengineering Deployment:
Considerations for Governance
Douglas G. MacMartin1 , Peter J. Irvine2, Ben Kravitz3, 4 and
Joshua B. Horton5
(1) Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY, USA
(2) Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK
(3) Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana
University, Bloomington, IN, USA
(4) Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
(5) Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA

Douglas G. MacMartin
Email: [email protected]

Consideration of solar geoengineering as a potential response to

climate change will demand complex decisions. These include not only
the choice to deploy or not, but decisions regarding how to deploy, and
ongoing decision making throughout deployment. However, relatively
little attention has been paid to envisioning what a solar
geoengineering deployment would look like in order to clarify what
types of decisions would need to be made. We examine the science of
geoengineering to ask how it might influence governance
considerations, while consciously refraining from making specific
recommendations. The focus here is on a hypothetical deployment (and
beyond) rather than research governance. Geoengineering can be
designed to trade off different outcomes, requiring an explicit
specification of multivariate goals. Thus, we initially consider the
complexity surrounding a decision to deploy. Next, we discuss the on-
going decisions that would be needed across multiple time-scales.
Some decisions are inherently slow, limited by detection and
attribution of climate effects in the presence of natural variability.
However, there is also a need for decisions that are inherently fast
relative to political time-scales: effectively managing some
uncertainties would require frequent adjustments to the geoengineered
forcing in response to observations. We believe that this exercise can
lead to greater clarity in terms of future governance needs by
articulating key characteristics of a hypothetical deployment scenario.1

1 Introduction
There is increasing awareness of the substantial gap between the
amount of mitigation needed to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate
change and current mitigation commitments.2 Solar geoengineering
approaches have the potential to provide an additional option for
managing the risks of climate change as illustrated qualitatively in Fig.
1,3 with the most frequently discussed option being the addition of
aerosols to the stratosphere to reflect some sunlight back to space.4 Not
enough is currently known to support informed decisions regarding
deployment of such approaches,5 but preliminary climate modeling
suggests that solar geoengineering in addition to mitigation is likely to
reduce many climate risks.6
Fig. 1 Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, combined with future large-scale
atmospheric CO2 removal, may lead to long-term climate stabilization with some
overshoot of desired temperature targets. There is a plausible role for temporary and
limited solar geoengineering as part of an overall strategy to reduce climate risks
during the overshoot period. This graph (from MacMartin et al. 2018) represents
climate impacts conceptually, not quantitatively
Deployment of solar geoengineering would have global effects,
leading to the question of how one might govern use of these
technologies.7 The international community has agreed upon a limit of
1.5–2 °C rise in global mean temperature above preindustrial levels,8
but 1.5 °C could be surpassed within the next 1–2 decades.9 This poses
some degree of urgency in terms of developing geoengineering
governance mechanisms, while simultaneously continuing scientific
research necessary to assess impacts and risks.
To understand what it is that needs governing, an important
question to help focus discussion is what decisions need to be made
and when? Clearly the most significant choice is simply whether or not
to deploy any form of solar geoengineering. However, if a choice is
made to deploy, that requires further choices that are neither binary
nor static. Different design choices will lead to different projected
outcomes. But since outcomes will never exactly match projections,
observations made during deployment will then drive subsequent
decisions across a wide range of timescales. The nature of these more
complex decisions may influence the needs of governance structures.
To understand these choices, it is necessary to consider the
characteristics of a well-intentioned deployment in greater detail. One
might then hope to structure governance that could enable and
encourage such an ideal scenario. This is the aim here: to articulate
what we know from climate science and engineering that is relevant to
defining needs for solar geoengineering governance.
Much of the initial climate research into solar geoengineering has
been exploratory, e.g., how models respond differently to a decrease in
sunlight versus an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Multiple
climate models have simulated an idealized reduction in sunlight,10 and
many climate models have simulated the response to a continuous
addition of stratospheric sulfate aerosols; typically in the form of SO2
that subsequently oxidizes and forms sulfate aerosols.11 While
informative, it would be a mistake to interpret any of these simulations
as describing how the climate would respond to solar geoengineering
because they test ad hoc strategies rather than intentionally designed
ones.
Research is only now engaging with three fundamental questions.
First, how could a solar geoengineering deployment be designed to
achieve some desired outcomes or minimize other effects12; this is a
necessary precursor to assessing climate impacts. With stratospheric
aerosols, for example, not only could one aim for more or less global
cooling, but one could put more emphasis at high versus low latitudes,
or Northern versus Southern hemispheres. Choices such as these will
influence the distribution of benefits and harms. Second, how could a
solar geoengineering deployment be managed to maintain desired
outcomes in the presence of uncertainty in the climate response.13 No
amount of research will reduce uncertainty to zero, and decisions will
inevitably be revisited in light of the observed response of the climate
to such interventions. That is, some form of adaptive management14 is
essential. However, this introduces a third challenge: how can observed
changes be correctly attributed to solar geoengineering15 in the
presence of both natural variability and uncertainty in the response to
other anthropogenic forcings?
We consider these three characteristics of deployment, along with
their corresponding challenges for decision-making.
1. Geoengineering is a design problem (Section 2). Geoengineering can
be designed to achieve a range of different possible climates. Given
that, what are the goals for deployment? This is more complex than
simply manipulating a “global thermostat;” deployment is not a
univariate decision.

2. Some uncertainties can be managed through feedback (Section 3.1).

Climate models don’t need to be perfect, as the forcing does not
need to be perfectly predicted in advance; it can be adjusted in
response to the observed climate – a feedback process. However,
this requires frequent updates that cannot be effectuated in a
political environment that is usually characterized by extremely
slow decision making.

3. Detection and attribution of regional changes will take decades

(Section 3.2). There will always be unpredictable weather and
climate events, and determining causation with confidence will
take time. (Conversely, if it is difficult to detect some climate shift,
that implies that the shift is small compared to natural variability,
and may not be important.) Thus, some decisions involve extreme
patience.

These last two propositions, associated with the time-scales of

evolving decisions, may appear to be ostensibly contradictory. In reality,
there will be a continuum of time-scales associated with different
features in the climate response. We explicitly avoid any discussion in
Sections 2 and 3 regarding how one might design governance to enable
decisions. Section 4 concludes with some brief thoughts tying the
nature of decisions explicated in the previous sections to the needs of
governance.

2 Spatial and Temporal Goals

Mitigation primarily involves a single decision variable, net greenhouse
gas emissions, or equivalently, the atmospheric concentration of
greenhouse gases. While mitigation involves trade-offs between
economics and climate outcomes, there aren’t substantive trade-offs
associated directly with climate outcomes: lower emissions yields less
climate damage than higher, and as a consequence, a single number
such as “2 °C” can stand in as a proxy for a wide collection of impacts.
That is not true for solar geoengineering.
First, solar geoengineering does not affect the climate the same way
that reduced concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases would,
leading to potentially disparate regional outcomes,16 and feeding into
the well-known concern over “who gets to set the thermostat.”
However, reality is more complex. The climate response to
geoengineering will depend on how it is deployed. With stratospheric
aerosols, for example, one could choose how much to inject at different
latitudes to obtain some influence over climate outcomes17; this is
illustrated in Fig. 2.18 By injecting aerosols into one or the other
hemisphere, one could influence the relative cooling between
hemispheres and use this degree of freedom to minimize shifts in the
ITCZ that could disrupt tropical precipitation patterns.19 By injecting
aerosols at higher latitudes, one could put more emphasis on cooling
higher rather than lower latitudes. The number of independent degrees
of freedom that could be achieved is unclear, but is at least these three;
introducing seasonal dependent injection rates might allow more
options,20 while other solar geoengineering approaches such as marine
cloud brightening21 might also allow more. It is thus insufficient to
agree only on a target for global mean temperature; a decision to
deploy must include a clear articulation of the high-level multivariate
goals for the deployment.22
Fig. 2 Illustration of design aspect to geoengineering. The aerosol optical depth
(AOD) is shown, scaled for a 1 Tg per year injection of SO2, calculated in a fully-
coupled chemistry-climate model. In the left panel, for equatorial injection (blue),
and split equally between either 15°S and 15°N (red) or 30°S and 30°N (green); each
leading to different emphasis between low and high latitudes. The right panel shows
injection at either 30°S (red) or 30°N (green), yielding different emphasis on each
hemisphere. Choosing different combinations of these will result in quite different
climate outcomes, allowing some potential to design the deployment to achieve
specified goals
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change committed
nations to avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference in the
climate system. Over time, this qualitative goal was translated into the
quantitative goal of limiting warming to well below 2 °C.23 A similar
exercise could arrive at multivariate quantitative goals for solar
geoengineering. This could be as simple as specifying the desired global
mean temperature, maintaining some minimum amount of Arctic sea
ice extent, while minimizing shifts in tropical precipitation. More
complex multivariate goals could be defined, with the constraint that
the spatial scale of these high-level goals needs to be at least somewhat
commensurate with the spatial scale of the available degrees of
freedom, and that there is sufficient understanding of the physical
relationship between these to use as a basis for design (a non-trivial
requirement). The ability to design for multivariate goals could
complicate negotiations, in that there are more choices to be made, but
could also simplify them, as some concerns that lead to conflicting
desires may be partially alleviated.
There will still be fundamental trade-offs, and what constitutes the
“ideal” climate is not clear. A plausible goal would be to avoid
significant change with respect to some baseline climate state (e.g., the
climate at the time geoengineering is commenced), but there will still
be trade-offs. A 2 °C world achieved purely through mitigation will not
be the same as a 2 °C world achieved through less aggressive mitigation
and some amount of geoengineering. However, with multiple degrees of
freedom, geoengineering can be designed to make these cases more
similar than much of the early research would suggest.24 Nonetheless,
there will still be differences between how geoengineering affects the
climate and how other anthropogenic influences affect the climate, due
to the different mechanisms of radiative forcing (though it is not clear
today how significant these changes might be). Furthermore, the entire
climate system is coupled. Even if we understood the system perfectly,
it would not be possible to independently adjust every possible climate
outcome, neither choosing different effects at spatially proximate
locations, nor simultaneously determining temperature and
precipitation outcomes at any location, nor eliminating extreme events.
The temporal aspect to the goal also needs to be defined. If solar
geoengineering were ever deployed, there are several reasons to only
gradually ramp up the forcing over time rather than immediately
demanding a substantial forcing level to cool the planet quickly. This
strategy allows possible surprises to be discovered earlier25 while
forcing is still relatively small. Furthermore, rapid changes in forcing
can also lead to unnecessary climate impacts, such as a short-term
reduction in monsoonal precipitation due to the differential rate of land
versus ocean cooling.26 Thus for example, in the presence of still-rising
atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, one might choose to
maintain conditions as close as possible to the year in which
deployment starts, as implied by Fig. 1. Other scenarios include limiting
only the rate of change of warming.27
A decision to deploy would also need to define the initial strategy to
meet these goals (e.g., how much SO2 to inject per year at which
latitudes, and how that is expected to change as a function of time),
what the justification is for concluding that that strategy would meet
the goals, what the projected impact would be on any climate variable
not explicitly specified, and an assessment of (and justification for)
confidence in projections.28 Climate scientists and engineers can in
principle provide this type of information, and indicate what is and is
not achievable, but the definition of goals is a policy choice.

3 Evolving Decisions
No amount of research will reduce the uncertainty in projected impacts
to zero. Uncertainty arises due to a variety of sources.29 Uncertainty in
specific processes, such as aerosol microphysical growth assumptions,
or ozone-chemistry reaction rates, might be sufficiently reducible
through a combination of better observations after volcanic eruptions30
and small-scale process-level field experiments.31 However, an
experiment to directly measure the climate response to forcing – how
variables such as regional temperature and precipitation might change
in response to geoengineering – would require both considerable time
and considerable forcing,32 making such a test practically equivalent to
deployment.33 Indeed, even early deployment would not likely involve
sufficient forcing to quickly resolve many uncertainties,34 as described
below. Thus, there will always be some residual level of uncertainty in
the climate response at the time of a deployment decision.
If it becomes clear during deployment that some outcome is not
what was predicted, a choice will be faced as to whether to modify the
strategy for meeting goals (such as increasing or decreasing the amount
of SO2 injected at some latitude), modify the goals themselves (put
more or less emphasis on some outcome), or potentially phase-out
deployment altogether. The next two sub-sections consider what these
decisions over time might look like. These can pose additional
challenges for how to structure international governance either by
requiring immediate action, or conversely, by requiring a high degree of
patience and consequent longevity of institutions.
While the climate system does not provide any clear separation of
time-scales, some structure can be imposed based on how decisions
might be made, by dividing the problem into those relatively few high-
level climate goals that the intervention is designed to meet, and all of
the vast number of other climate system variables that affect humans
and ecosystems. For example, if geoengineering was intended to
maintain global mean temperature at 2 °C, then any sustained period
warmer or cooler than that could justify increasing or decreasing the
amount of geoengineering; the sign of the effect this would have on
temperature is clear from basic physics. However, the impact on
precipitation in some country might, at the time of a deployment
decision, be uncertain even in sign; this type of effect would need to be
monitored, any observed changes determined as to whether they were
attributable to the deployment or not, and a decision made as to
whether to alter the deployment in response. These two examples yield
quite different timescales for decisions.
3.1 Managing Uncertainty through Feedback
No engineered system is perfectly understood. Rather than simply
introducing an input and hoping for the best, systems from aircraft
flight control to manufacturing plants all rely on feedback: the output is
monitored, compared with the desired value, and the inputs slightly
adjusted so that over time the output converges to the desired value.
One relies on the same fundamental principle every time one drives a
car or takes a shower in an unfamiliar place; in an ecosystem context
this is known as adaptive management.35 In the context of earth system
management, Schellnhuber and Kropp36 term this “geocybernetics”.
This feedback process compensates for some degree of uncertainty in
the strength of the relationship between input and output. Thus, for
example, the amount of solar reduction required to offset the warming
from some amount of CO2 varies from model to model.37 Following
Jarvis and Leedal,38 MacMartin et al.39 demonstrated the idea of using
feedback of the “observed” global mean temperature to adjust the
amount of solar reduction in a climate model; Kravitz et al.40 then
demonstrated that this process was sufficiently robust so that even if
the feedback algorithm was tuned using simulations from one climate
model, it still yielded the desired outcomes in a second. This idea has
been extended to manage multiple climate variables simultaneously,41
and to do so by adjusting the amount of SO2 injection at multiple
latitudes42 rather than idealized patterns of solar reduction. In each of
these cases, there is a clear physical relationship between the input and
output; e.g., if you increase the aerosol injection rate you will decrease
temperature, if you shift more of the injection to one hemisphere from
the other, you will preferentially cool that hemisphere. However, the
exact relationship does not need to be known, and thus some amount of
uncertainty can be managed. To successfully implement solar
geoengineering to achieve some temperature target, for example, we do
not need to know either how much radiative forcing is exerted by a
given rate of aerosol injection, or how much the climate cools in
response – just that increased injection causes increased cooling.
This capability to manage uncertainty requires the ability to
constantly make slight adjustments to the system. Anyone who has
impatiently tried to adjust a shower temperature knows how difficult
the task can be if there is substantial time delay between moving the
knob and feeling the resulting change. If one waited for 10 years to see
what the effect of geoengineering was on the temperature before
making any adjustment, then on average that information is now
5 years old, introducing a substantial time-delay. It is better to make
minor adjustments every year, even if the lack of statistical significance
means that one might be reacting to climate variability, and indeed,
such an algorithm will always react to and modify climate variability.43
If such a feedback process were used in a solar geoengineering
deployment, the details regarding how much to adjust would be
esoteric, although the basic concept is straightforward.
The need for a rapid decision-making capability is not restricted to
managing uncertainty. An additional reason would be if a large volcanic
eruption occurred during a deployment of stratospheric aerosol
geoengineering. One could choose to do nothing different; in this case
the decrease in global temperature might still be less than if there were
no geoengineering due to nonlinearities in sulfate aerosol
microphysics.44 However, it would be wiser to decrease injection
immediately – on a time-scale of weeks – to compensate for the
increase in stratospheric sulfate from the eruption. Furthermore, an
eruption in one hemisphere will preferentially cool that hemisphere,
shifting the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) towards the opposite
hemisphere, and shifting tropical precipitation with it; this can have
significant human consequences such as Sahelian drought.45 Thus one
might want to rapidly increase the injection of aerosols into the
opposite hemisphere to counterbalance the effect of the eruption over
the ensuing year.
The need for short time-scale decisions clearly has ramifications for
governance, as described in Section 4. However, other decisions may
present governance challenges at the opposite end of the spectrum due
to the long time-scales involved in detection and attribution of changes
not predicted at deployment.

3.2 Detection and Attribution May Take Decades

The example given earlier for high-level goals included global mean
temperature, Arctic sea ice extent, and tropical precipitation. However,
the ultimate goals of reducing climate damages are more complicated
and multi-dimensional. Prior to deployment there would presumably
be a comprehensive multi-model assessment of the predicted impact of
geoengineering, not only for high-level goals, but for regional climate
shifts, changes in probability of different weather events, and so forth.
If models predict that geoengineering will increase the likelihood or
magnitude of some particular type of extreme weather event, and if
such an event does occur, it is reasonable to (at least fractionally)
attribute that event to the deployment; this may be useful in
compensation schemes for example.
However, there will always be uncertainty in model predictions, and
prediction skill will be more limited for some variables than others.
This leads to a challenge: acknowledging model uncertainty requires a
willingness to learn through observations, while at the same time not
responding to every weather event or perceived shift in climate that
occurs. Learning where model predictions were meaningfully wrong
will take time. Furthermore, even the benefits of deployment will not be
immediately apparent.
If one learns that the deployment is leading to some undesired and
unpredicted shift in regional climate (including changes in the
magnitude or frequency of some extreme weather events), one could
alter the high-level goals; e.g., allow global mean temperature to
increase slightly so that less geoengineered forcing is required, or
change the relative emphasis on high vs low-latitudes, or introduce
additional goals. Indeed, a possible decision would be to terminate the
deployment altogether (ideally through a gradual phase-out as in
MacMartin, Caldeira and Keith46 to avoid a “termination shock”47).
The challenge with this collective set of decisions, involving every
climate variable at any spatial scale, is that the very concept of “climate”
that is at the core of either climate change or climate engineering
describes long-term multi-decadal characteristics. Over shorter time-
scales there is considerable variability that can mask the response due
to geoengineering. For example, despite the duration of anthropogenic
greenhouse-gas forced climate change today, while there is no
ambiguity regarding the sign of the effect on some metrics like global
mean temperature or Arctic sea ice extent, there is still considerable
uncertainty in how increased greenhouse gases have affected regional
precipitation patterns,48 and even at the global scale there can be
substantial decadal variability in the trend (e.g., the so-called “hiatus” of
the early 2000’s). Attribution of individual storms or droughts to
climate change is improving but remains difficult today,49 in part
because of insufficient statistics on the probability of rare events. There
will always be unusual events; in any year one might expect 1% of the
world’s population to experience a once-in-a-century event. The
difficulty of attributing any individual event to geoengineering early in
a deployment may be even more challenging than attributing an
individual event to climate change is today, simply because the forcing
will likely start out smaller. Furthermore, solar geoengineering would
be taking place simultaneously with increased greenhouse gas forcing
whose detailed impact remains uncertain.
As noted earlier, a plausible deployment scenario might be to
maintain conditions as close as possible to the year in which
deployment starts. Such a scenario was simulated by Kravitz et al.,50
where the background anthropogenic climate change emissions follow
a high-end RCP 8.5 scenario51 and SO2 injection is used to maintain
2020 conditions. A few results from that simulation are shown in Fig. 3
below, both at a global scale and for northern India.52 Geoengineering
simulations are typically plotted showing both the no-geoengineering
and geoengineered cases as different colored lines, and often averaged
over time or over multiple simulations to estimate the forced response.
However, if geoengineering were actually used, the alternate universe
in which geoengineering was not used will only exist as a hypothetical
in models. The actual climate that anyone experiences will continue to
be marked by variability and unusual events, and it will only be over
decades that some changes will become apparent. For example, in Fig.
3, the change in slope (rate of increase) for global mean temperature is
statistically significant with a 95% confidence after 10 years, and
similarly for the change in global mean precipitation. It takes 20 years
for the change in slope of the temperature over northern India to be
statistically significant, and in this single model simulation, the change
in annual-mean precipitation over that region is never statistically
significant at a 95% confidence, yet averaging over many similar
simulations does show that at least in this model, with this deployment
strategy, the precipitation is expected to decrease slightly in this
region.53 Changes in many other variables, such as precipitation
averaged over only one season, or the frequency of extreme weather
events, may be even more difficult to detect in the presence of natural
climate variability.

Fig. 3 Annual mean temperature and precipitation change relative to 1975–2020

averaged over the globe and over Northern India in a simulation in which
stratospheric aerosol geoengineering was initiated in 2020 with the goal of keeping
temperatures at 2020 levels in the presence of increasing greenhouse gas
concentrations (see Kravitz et al. (2017) for details). In each plot, the black line
shows the simulated trajectory, with the star indicating the start of (low-level)
deployment. The blue line and shaded band are the best fit slope to 1975–2020, and
± 1 standard deviation of natural variability about this. The change in slope of global
mean temperature and precipitation are statistically significant at the 95th
percentile after roughly 10 years (using Welch’s unequal-variances t-test); the
regional temperature change over northern India takes 20 years to show a
statistically significant change in trend, while the change in precipitation over this
region is not statistically significant in this simulation even by 2100, but does show a
drop when averaged over sufficient ensemble members. Note that the unusual
response in year 2023 is due to a model error and should be ignored. Similar plots
could be generated for other variables and spatial scales, including frequency of
weather events such as the number of Atlantic hurricanes per season
A long time-scale for detection and attribution is not in and of itself
a problem. If it is hard to detect a change in some variable, it is hard
precisely because the change is small relative to natural variability, and
thus that change might not have serious adverse impacts.
However, how should one respond if observations suggest an 80%
chance that some variable has changed? Or a 50% chance? Increased
certainty will require waiting for more time to pass. Furthermore, with
a sufficiently large space of climate variables being monitored, roughly
5% will show unusual changes that appear to be statistically significant
at a 95% confidence level. In principle, models can be used to assess the
plausibility of a physical connection with the geoengineering
deployment, rather than simply relying on analysis of time series.
However, the entire motivation for looking for possible changes in
regional climate arises from concern that the models are imperfect, and
so it is the difference from predictions that one is most interested in
uncovering through observation.
Finally, if the strategy is adjusted in response to some observed
change, that resets the clock on attribution, with a similar time-scale
required to be sure that the new strategy indeed yields a different
result.

4 Implications for Governance

The international community has been able to agree to a target of
holding temperatures to substantially below a 2 °C rise in global mean
temperature above preindustrial levels. Thus, there is at least
precedent for global agreement on climate goals. One of the challenges
with reaching agreement on one “global thermostat” for solar
geoengineering is that different regions might differentially benefit or
have different desired amounts of warming or cooling. While it might
seem that if agreeing on one number is hard, and thus agreeing on
multiple goals would be harder still, that may not be true if the ability
to independently manage multiple goals means that the distribution of
benefits and harms is more uniform. Nonetheless, it will not be possible
to design a deployment that can achieve every possible goal in every
region of the world, and the trade-offs involved will require the ability
to agree on more complex choices than simply a number. Deployment
goals would be fundamentally political, reflecting not only policy
considerations but deeper struggles over the notion and content of an
ideal climate, nature vs. artifice, etc. Scientists and engineers can
present what is possible and likely or unlikely, but can’t (or shouldn’t)
decide what objectives to pursue.
Once deployed, there will be a variety of decisions that will need to
be made over a wide range of time-scales. Both “slow” and “fast”
decisions present interesting challenges for governance.
The primary challenge in the former may be to avoid action when it
is not warranted by the available evidence. The issue of attributional
time-scale puts pressure on organizational lifetimes, with inherent
time-scales for solar geoengineering that are not only inter-
generational in the overall lifetime of the deployment but at least multi-
decadal in the ability to monitor, assess, and modify key decisions about
the deployment. While uncertainty about the climate response needs to
be accepted, and a culture of adaptive management supported, the long
time-scales for attribution also create a need to establish processes that
would counter the impulse to constantly change the goals of the
deployment in response to the latest climate event; there will always be
unusual weather events whether geoengineering is deployed or not.
The shorter time-scales associated with either managing
uncertainty or responding to events such as volcanic eruptions are not
well matched to political processes; one can’t delay because of
procedural discussions or political posturing without suffering
consequences. Furthermore, political processes may also be ill-suited to
these decisions because of the technical knowledge needed to
determine the appropriate action. Instead, governance may involve
agreeing to the guidelines behind such adjustments and empowering
an expert technical body to make them.
 Clearly, decisions about feedback and attribution raise critical
questions about the role of technocracy in governing a hypothetical
geoengineering deployment. While the timeframes for such decisions
would vary considerably, both types of decisions would be
characterized by a need to insulate decision processes from broader
debates about the overall purposes, goals, and objectives of
geoengineering. Given the specialized knowledge required for making
sound operational decisions and probability estimates based on
statistical methods, substantial decision-making authority would need
to be delegated to technical experts. These decisions would need to be
largely “apolitical” in order to ensure consistency and predictability, in
support of the ultimate goal of climate stability. (However, this
characterization does not apply to more fundamental decisions about
whether to deploy and what goals to pursue, which are primarily
political in nature.) Other commentators have argued that such
technocratic requirements would necessarily render governance of
SRM deployment undemocratic.54 However, on both short and long
time-scales, modern society offers multiple examples of effective
technocratic processes successfully embedded within democratic
political systems.55 Electrical grids are managed on a minute scale by
trained experts at local utilities and regional system operators under
the public oversight of subnational, national, and regional regulatory
bodies. Economists at central banks, typically coordinating on an
international basis, have wide latitude to set monetary policy to smooth
out multi-year business cycles, but they do so within parameters set by
the political system, and are ultimately accountable to elected
representatives.
To be sure, striking an appropriate balance between expert
autonomy and political oversight, particularly on the decadal time-scale
required for robust determinations of attribution, will pose serious
challenges for any proposal to deploy geoengineering. Just as
geoengineering itself is a design problem, so too is geoengineering
governance, and solutions will not be easy. However, SRM governance
also resembles SRM technology in that it is not binary in character, that
is, it is not either democratic or technocratic. Rather, like other forms of
global governance, it is likely to entail a mixture of these and other
modes of social control, with ample scope for institutional innovation.
 In summary, a decision to deploy is more than a simple yes/no, but
a responsible deployment decision should also include
Definition and agreement on quantitative high-level climate goals.
This will likely occur in conjunction with the scientific/engineering
process of determining the deployment strategy that best meets
these goals, evaluating the resulting projected impacts, and explicitly
assessing confidence in these projections. Without this definition of
goals there is no basis on which to make choices such as where and
how much aerosol to inject.
An agreed-upon approach for updating the deployment as a function
of time, including observational resources, how the resulting data
will be analyzed, how to conduct attribution and how that feeds into
adjustments to the original plan (and potentially also compensation),
including rules for how to adjust forcing (e.g. SO2 injection rates)
across multiple time-scales, and potentially the formation of an
expert body to execute at least some of these rules.
Governance of geoengineering will require international trust, long
organizational lifetimes, complex decision-making, and a culture of
adaptive management in order to encourage sound decisions about
well-intentioned and well-designed climate interventions.

References
1. Cheng, et al.: Soil moisture and other hydrological changes in a stratospheric
aerosol geoengineering large ensemble. J. Geo. Res. A. 124 (2019)
2.
Crutzen, P.J.: Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: A
contribution to resolve a policy dilemma? Clim. Change. 77 (2006)
3.
Dagon, K., Schrag, D.P.: Regional climate variability under model simulations of
solar geoengineering. J. Geo. Res A. 122 (2017)
4.
Herring, S.C., et al. (eds.): Explaining extreme events of 2017 from a climate
perspective. Bulletin Am. Met. Soc. 100, 111 (2019)
5.
Horton, J., et al.: Solar geoengineering and democracy. Glob. Environ. Politics. 18
(2018)
Other documents randomly have
different content
bottom of his cage with his great head between his paws, moaning
and groaning, his spirit broken and seemingly near to death.
Meanwhile Eiseeyou walked the deck of the great boat, his simple
soul wracked in devilish torment. Occasionally he would come and
stand by the cage and look at The White Czar. Then he would
remember what a lovable little chap he had been as a cub, and how
little Oumauk had loved him. Then he would go away to pace the
deck again.
Thus the first night of the White Czar's captivity wore away; but
whether it was longer for the great beast or for the agonized man,
who shall say?
 CHAPTER XI
THE WRECK
The day following the capture of the White Czar the Eskimos
arrived at their summer quarters and again set up their cloth tents.
Eiseeyou at once went ashore to see that all was well with his little
family. That afternoon when he returned to the ship, Mr. Adams, the
head of the expedition surprised Eiseeyou very much by telling him
that they were to start on the return trip on the morrow, and that if
he wished, Eiseeyou and little Oumauk might go with them as far as
Quebec. This would save them passage money and also save time.
Eiseeyou was overjoyed at this news. He thanked the white man
in his broken English and then hastened away to tell his kooner and
to get Oumauk.
When he undertook to explain to Oumauk the nature of their trip,
the boy was much surprised. He could not understand that his eyes
were sick, and that was what made the long night. He had thought
all the time that the light in the stone lamp and the light in the sun
and moon had gone out, while he was all right. This had been his
first fancy, and Eiseeyou had let him keep it, thinking it would be
easier to bear in that way.
When he was told that the great doctor at Quebec might again
make his eyes see, he became happy for the first time in many
months. When in addition to that he was told that he was to go on a
great ship far away over the ocean, he was much excited.
"I wish I knew one thing before I go," he said when they were
helping him dress for the journey. "I had a bad dream last night. I
dreamed that Whitie was in trouble. I saw him in my dream just as I
used to. He was on an island eating a seal pup. Then a man came
upon the island and scared him away. Then Whitie started to swim
but some bad men chased him in a boat that didn't have any sail
and they did not paddle it, but it just went and went by itself. Poor
Whitie swam and swam just as fast as he could, but they caught up
to him and threw a rope and caught him by the neck. Then Whitie
fighted and fighted, but they pulled on the rope and choked him.
They choked and choked until Whitie was almost dead. Then they
pulled him up into another ship as large as a mountain and put him
in a great box and he laid down and cried and cried and cried. Then
I woke up and I was crying too."
"Have you seen Whitie?" asked the Eskimo boy with tears in his
eyes, pulling at Eiseeyou's sleeve.
The Eskimo was dumfounded at this account of Oumauk's dream,
for it corresponded almost perfectly to what had happened the day
before. Like all Eskimos he was very superstitious, and this had a
sort of supernatural appearance to him. So he crossed himself
before replying. Then he answered warily.
"Yes, I saw Whitie. He was eating a seal pup. He was all right."
"Is he all right now?" insisted Oumauk, his voice trembling with
excitement.
"Yes," replied poor Eiseeyou, "Whitie is all right."
Oumauk sighed contentedly. "O I am so glad. Now we will go to
the city and see the great doctor and he will make my eyes well, and
the light will come back to the sun." He laughed gleefully, something
that he had not done for a long time, and Eiseeyou was much
relieved.
Toward night Oumauk and Eiseeyou said goodbye to the rest of
the family, and two other Eskimo men rowed them out to the ship in
one of the Eskimo boats.
As Eiseeyou climbed up the steps with little Oumauk in his arms
and finally set his foot upon the firm deck, the boy cried out
excitedly, and what he said made Eiseeyou go pale beneath his
swarthy skin.
 "Oh, oh," cried Oumauk, sniffing the air again and again, "I smell
Whitie. I smell Whitie. Has he been on this ship?"
Eiseeyou knew that his race have a very keen sense of smell
almost akin to that possessed by many Indians, but that Oumauk
would have noted the musty smell of the great bear so soon amazed
him.
"Whitie was on the island eating a seal pup, when I saw him," he
said.
"You must not get so excited about him. Just think about the
doctor and your eyes being made well."
Eiseeyou hastened with Oumauk to the cabin where he put him in
his bunk and told him that night was coming on and he must rest.
After the Eskimo boy had eaten a supper of the white man's food,
he asked his father to take him out upon the deck; but Eiseeyou
refused, fearing that he would hear the great bear who was still
moaning and sighing in his cage at one end of the ship.
The following morning Mr. Adams informed Eiseeyou that the
White Czar refused all food, and that he was afraid he would die.
"In that case," continued Mr. Adams, "we will not get the large
sum of money that we had expected for him alive, so we could not
pay you so much."
At these words Eiseeyou's heart sank. Perhaps there would not be
money enough for them to see the doctor after all. Maybe their trip
would be for nothing. He could not take the little Oumauk back
unless he had brought the joy of living again to his face. He must
see the doctor. The White Czar must live.
"You say your son can do anything with him," continued Mr.
Adams. "Perhaps he could coax him to eat. I would try it if I were
you. We must keep him alive for both our sakes."
So Eiseeyou set himself the hard task of telling Oumauk.
 He had never lied to his son before, and he did not know how to
account for his untruth. But love makes us all strong, so Eiseeyou
went bravely through it.
He explained to Oumauk at length how necessary it was for them
to see the doctor, and how much money it took. He told him that Mr.
Adams had offered a large sum of money if he would help him catch
the bear, and that all their happiness depended on it. Oumauk
listened stoically as is the way with his people, then asked simply:
"Must Whitie be shut up all his life so that I can see the sun
again?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so," returned Eiseeyou.
"Is Whitie happy? Does he like to be shut up?"
"No," said Eiseeyou truthfully. "He is very unhappy and he does
not like to be shut up. He is so unhappy that he will not eat."
"Then I will let him out. I do not want to see if Whitie is to be
sorry all the time."
Eiseeyou then explained very patiently that this was impossible,
as he had told the white man he would help him. He also said that
many white children would love Whitie once he arrived at Quebec,
and that he would be happy when he got used to the white men's
ways. But he must eat now. Do you want to feed him a fish?
Oumauk's mind was diverted by this thought so they at once
proceeded to the cage where the great white bear still lay with his
head between his paws groaning and sighing.
"Oh, Whitie, Whitie, Oumauk is here. He has come," cried the
child. At the sound of the childish voice the White Czar raised his
mighty head and looked at the boy.
"Oumauk is here. He will give you a fine fish," repeated the boy.
To the amazement and horror of Mr. Adams, who stood by
watching the proceedings curiously, the boy thrust his small hand
through the planks towards the mighty jaw of the bear.
 "Stop, stop," cried the white man. "For God's sake, don't let him
put his hands in there. That brute will bite them off."
"O no," said Eiseeyou. "I am not afraid. They are old friends."
To the astonishment of every one, the mighty bear arose and
stood on all fours; then, reaching out his head, he licked the hands
of Oumauk with his long, supple red tongue.
Then Oumauk passed his hands over the bear's face and he
seemed as delighted as a dog.
When Oumauk had petted and talked to Whitie for a while, a fish
was brought and to the surprise of every one but Eiseeyou, the bear
took the fish and ate it greedily.
After this Oumauk spent most of his time by the side of the White
Czar's cage, petting him and talking to him.
All went well with the little expedition for about a week, and then
the unexpected happened. The course they were pursuing was
entirely out of any steamship lane. Only sealing and whaling vessels
and an occasional revenue cutter ever traversed this dangerous
portion of the Seven Seas. Their course lay in almost the same
direction as that of the icebergs that had been breaking away from
the northern icefloe for several weeks and drifting away southward
to mingle and melt in the great Atlantic. The floe of the bergs had
nearly ceased, but hardly a day passed but that they saw many
small cakes of ice. So for the past week they had kept a sharp
lookout for these hidden dangers to unsuspecting ships.
It was about twelve o'clock on the eighth day from Eskimo Village
and The Spray was off the Newfoundland banks.
It was a rather dark night, and the lookout at his post could see
little, but he kept up an intense listening. Icebergs are often
detected by sound, and also by a chilliness in the air. But no such
sign was observed.
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the ship experienced a
shock that shook her from stem to stern. She quivered and
shuddered, and then there was a grinding, grating sound along her
side. Then she seemed to sheer off from the berg and continue on
her way. She had been going at half speed, and the engineer
immediately stopped his engine in order to take an inventory of
damages. But old Neptune almost immediately informed them, as
the water began flowing freely into the small engine room. Every
one in the cabin reached for as many clothes as he could get in both
hands, without taking too much time, and started for the deck.
Eiseeyou caught little Oumauk in his arms and hurried with him
after the white men.
On deck all was excitement. The crew were already preparing to
lower the motor boat. Luckily it was a large one and could easily
accommodate the dozen men of the crew. The ship had already
listed badly, and in twenty minutes she had begun to sink rapidly.
There seemed nothing to do but to trust to the motor boat. The sea
was not very rough, but no one could tell what it would be like in a
few hours. There was one thing however on which the captain
pinned much hope. His boat "The Spray" was rigged with wireless
and they at once sent out their S.O.S. cry for help, giving the
latitude and longitude of the stricken ship as well as they could.
Little Oumauk was rather sleepy and did not at first appreciate
what had happened. But when Eiseeyou went down the ladder to
the motor boat with him, his suspicions were aroused.
"Where are we going?" he asked. "Are we leaving the ship?
"Yes," replied Eiseeyou. "The ship is leaking. We are going to
travel in the small boat for a while."
"Are we going to take Whitie with us?" asked Oumauk excitedly.
Eiseeyou had foreseen the question and had his answer ready.
"O no, we can't," he returned. "Our boat is too small. If the ship
sinks, Whitie will float away in his cage all right. By and by he will
reach the shore, and then he will strike off one of the planks and get
out. Perhaps he will get back to Eskimo Land before we do."
 "Do you think Whitie wants to go back to Eskimo Land?" asked
Oumauk, diverted by this idea.
"Yes, I guess he does. He is all right, so don't bother."
Secretly, however, Eiseeyou felt certain that the white czar would
sleep at the bottom of the ocean. If it had been day and Oumauk
had been fully awake, he would probably have asked many more
perplexing questions and might have gotten at the truth. But he was
very tired and sleepy, and soon his head lay back against Eiseeyou's
shoulder and he slept.
But Eiseeyou himself was far from sleepy. In his own mind he was
much troubled. Like all the rest of his race he was very superstitious.
Ever since the capture of the great bear he had brooded over the
event. Secretly he felt certain that this wreck had been caused by his
treachery to The White Czar.
Perhaps even the bear himself had brought it about, but more
probably the god that controlled the wild creatures had brought it
upon them. So marked is the Eskimo's superstition that when he kills
the first narwal of the season, he makes an offering to the god of
hunting and especially that of the narwal, in order that he may have
good luck for the rest of the season.
The motor boat had barely gotten out of sight when the ship
listed sharply on the port side and to the front. This caused the
White Czar's cage, which had been propped up on some timbers, to
start sliding down the deck. Just as the ship ended up and the bow
started to sink, the cage struck the rail and, due partly to the frantic
effort of the bear turned a complete somersault and landed right
side up on the water. Then a great wave swept it fifty feet away
from the ship. This was very fortunate for the Czar, for otherwise the
cage might have been drawn down by the suction of the sinking
ship. But another wave caught the cage before the ship finally
floundered and carried it still further away. Then the ship sank and
the only object of the entire expedition that was left in sight was the
great bear, floating knee deep in the cold water in his wooden cage.
 When the Czar first felt the icy water on his shaggy legs he was
glad. A sense of life and freedom thrilled him.
This freezing water was his native element. True he was still
surrounded by this hateful cage, which narrowed his world down to
twelve feet in one direction and eight in the other, but he felt certain
that it would float away. The waters which had always befriended
him would help him. Then he remembered with a shudder his last
experience in the water—the men and the motor boat and the rope
that had nearly strangled him, and the courage in his great stout
heart wavered. Perhaps he was not going to escape after all.
The bottom of his cage had been made perfectly tight, so that it
now acted as a raft. The water was two feet deep in the cage due to
the weight of the bear and the top of the cage, but that was no
hardship to him. But the clumsy cage did not keep facing the seas as
did the motor boat a mile away, so when it came into the trough, the
water was four feet deep instead of two. Even so it would have gone
rolling over and over but that the great shaggy beast inside trimmed
it and steadied it just as cleverly as a man would have a fractious
canoe.
The art of balancing he was master of. He had learned it by
sailing for miles upon rocking cakes of ice. What brute cunning could
do to keep the cage right side up and from swamping, he could be
trusted to do. But gradually it water soaked and came up from the
wettings in the trough of the sea less and less buoyantly. Finally the
water in the cruel cage was up to the bear's sides. Truly his plight
was getting desperate. At last when the water came up to his
shoulders and he even had to swim a few strokes occasionally in the
cruel cage, Eiseeyou's prophecy seemed about to be fulfilled. It
certainly looked as though he would sleep in the Atlantic. Meanwhile
the motor boat was having her troubles. The man at the wheel did
not try to make any particular direction, but simply kept her headed
towards the regularly rolling waves. He knew if she once got in the
trough she might be capsized. So all the power was used to keep
her facing the sea. Every time she rose on the top of a high wave,
the propeller would be out of water and would spin like a top.
Then she would come down into the water again and the engine
would resume its labored panting.
The men talked but little. No one knew what the outcome of this
disaster might be. Eiseeyou sat in the stern of the boat with Oumauk
in his arms, listening for the regular resounding slap of each
succeeding wave on the bows of the little craft.
As the hours wore wearily on, he noted that the swells were
getting higher and higher and the sound when they struck the boat
louder. Their plight was certainly desperate.
It was just a gamble whether they would be picked up before the
seas engulfed them.
Finally a grey streak appeared in the east and they hailed it with
joy. Eagerly the eyes of the little party watched the grey streak
widen and take on color, until finally the golden rim of the sun came
up out of the sea and it was daylight. Then to their great joy they
discovered a three masted gasoline-driven fishing vessel coming
towards them. She had evidently not seen them, so they at once set
their signal of distress. Soon she answered and in twenty minutes
was alongside.
"Ship Ahoy!" called a nasal voice from the fishing vessel, as soon
as they came in hailing distance of the motor boat. "What shall I do
for you? Haul you aboard?"
"Ay, ay, that's just what we are looking for. But perhaps you had
better take some of our passengers off first. We are pretty heavily
loaded and have shipped a lot of water."
So The Three Bells, from Marble Head, owned and handled by
Silas Perkins, Esq., manœuvered until she was in position and then
threw the motor boat a line. Finally she was made fast to the
schooner and her passengers successfully transferred to the fishing
boat, which reeked with the smell of salt fish.
 "Well, well," cried Captain Silas Perkins, as he viewed the sorry-
looking men, "you are a rather watersoaked-looking lot. But I guess
some hot coffee will make a difference."
"But say captain," he asked, grinning broadly, "you hain't lost a
bear, have you? A gol-durned big one."
"A bear!" cried Mr. Adams in astonishment, "I, I,——"
"Oh, oh," cried little Oumauk, who had been listening intently,
"where is Whitie? I know Whitie is lost."
"Why, yes, I am reminded," replied Mr. Adams. "I had entirely
forgotten our prize passenger. Yes, Mr. Captain, perhaps we have
lost a bear. What's your item?"
"Fust," said Captain Perkins, "let me ax you a question or two. Did
your ship strike another ship, or a berg, or something, and flounder
in latitude fifty degrees, eighteen minutes and forty seconds, and
longitude fifty degrees and ten minutes or thereabouts?"
"That was just about where we were when we struck," said the
captain of the unfortunate Spray, "I believe that was the S.O.S. I
sent out."
"Good!" cried Captain Perkins. "For once my Eben's plaything has
done some one some good.
"You see my boy Eben is a dabster at wireless an' when we came
off on this here voyage, he said as how he wanted to rig up a
wireless. So I said, 'Go ahead. I guess it won't do any harm.' Well,
last night he said as how the stuff was aflyin' around pretty thick an'
as how he wanted to set up for a spell an' see what he could hear.
So he happened to be a listinin' in, as he calls it, when you hollered
for help. An' by jimmerny crickets! he managed to get your position
just right. We was only a few miles to the south, so we headed
straight for your call. When we got there, as near as we could
calculate, we didn't see a durn thing, but just a great sort of pig pen
cage floating about with a gol-darned great polar bear aswimmin'
about inside it. It had only sunk about two feet in the water, and he
was standin' inside the cage as prompt as you please, headed
directly for the United States."
"O, O," cried Oumauk. "Whitie is drowned. I know he is; Whitie is
drowned."
"Ef Whitie is what you call that great brute, he ain't drowned by a
jugful. But he did get a good wetting. You see, men, it came about
this way."
"My mate, Hank Jones, is allus a-dasting me to do suthing out of
the ordinary. He is allus makin' fun of my mechanics. You see, I am
a mechanical genius. So when Hank saw this bear, he dasted me to
rig a pulley and pull him on board, cage and all. An' I tuck Hank's
dast and had him aboard in about fifteen minutes. He is as high and
dry as a salt codfish this very minute, there in the stern of the Three
Bells."
"Oh, oh," cried Oumauk. "I am so glad Whitie is not drowned, and
we can all go to Quebec just as we planned."
 CHAPTER XII
TWO CAPTIVES
So it all turned out just as Oumauk had prophesied, Captain
Perkins was intending to stop at Quebec with a portion of his catch
of cod. But even if he had not been, he would gladly have gone out
of his way to take them all to their destination, especially after he
had heard the story of Little Oumauk and the great white bear.
"Queerest story I ever heard," he said, spitting reflectively over
the rail when Mr. Adams had finished relating it. "It is almost as
good as a story book and true to boot, which most books ain't."
So finally the Three Bells touched at Quebec, that Canadian city
so famous in history, and the twelve passengers from the expedition,
and Eiseeyou and Oumauk, not to mention the White Czar, were all
safely landed. Then after much handshaking on the part of Captain
Perkins and very cordial invitations to one and all to call on him at
Marble Head, The Three Bells went on her way.
A great dray soon appeared and the large cage containing the
White Czar was loaded upon it, while the white men with Eiseeyou
and Oumauk went to their destination in a taxi.
To Eiseeyou the great city was like fairyland, and he and Oumauk
were destined to have many wonderful and wondering days
exploring it.
Mr. Adams at once took them to the great doctor whose address
had been given them by the missionary. He received them graciously
and was much interested in the small boy from the Arctic, once Mr.
Adams had told his story. After examining Oumauk's eyes carefully,
the doctor advised that he go to the hospital, which he said was a
fine place where they would make Oumauk's eyes as good as new.
But he said it would take time.
So Eiseeyou and Oumauk, accompanied by Mr. Adams went to the
hospital. This first day Eiseeyou was too much amazed at the
wonders of the city to describe them to Oumauk, but later on he
made up for all this remissness.
Arrived at the hospital, Oumauk had to say goodbye to Eiseeyou
for that day, but the father promised to see him again on the
morrow. They also comforted Oumauk by telling him that he could
go out each day with his father and explore the city. They simply
wanted him for treatment and he was free to come and go during
certain hours, but he must sleep and eat at the hospital.
Although Oumauk was rather frightened at being left alone, yet
he was much comforted with this arrangement, and finally became
very philosophical, as is the way with his race.
They first stripped the Eskimo boy and took his clothes all away
from him. He thought this a great hardship as the garments were his
very best furs, although he did find them rather warm in this strange
new country. They then put the wondering boy in a bath tub and
gave him a good scrubbing. This was to get rid of the body lice, but
they told him it was to make him ready to get his sight. They then
put him in a clean, wonderful bed, which seemed to him like
fairyland, although he had gotten used to the bunks in the two ships
on which he had travelled.
But everything about him was strange these days, so he was not
much amazed at anything.
The nurse had to show him how to put on his nightdress, which
was quite different from his auk-skin shirt. She also had to tell him
how to get into bed and cover himself up with the clothes.
Finally the lights were all put out and little Oumauk, the child of
the snow, was sleeping peacefully in the land of the white man.
 Meanwhile his friend, whom he always called Whitie, even up to
the very last time that he saw him just as he had when he had been
a fuzzy cub, was also experiencing changes. He was driven away to
the very heart of the city where a man who knew all about bears, or
at least thought he did, came and inspected him. He was delighted
with the huge, white beast and set to work at once to make a den
for him. This was completed in two or three days, so when Eiseeyou
and Oumauk finally visited the park where they were told that their
friend was to live, they found him in fine quarters. That is, the men
who had built them thought them fine. Whether the White Czar
thought them fine or not, who shall say? But I am inclined to think
that he simply made the best of them and bided his time, just as do
most wild animals which are captured when full grown and taken
into captivity.
His den was made in the side of a hill. The foundation was
concrete. The entire den was twenty-five feet by twelve. The den
was equally divided between a swimming pool and a platform of
rocks, upon which the Czar could stretch himself when he was tired
of the water.
He at once recognized Eiseeyou and Oumauk, and came out of
the pool to greet the boy. The keeper of the park was amazed to see
the small, dark boy stick his fingers through the bars to the great
brute. He cried out for him to stop. But Eiseeyou told him in his
quaint English that they were old friends.
Finally the keeper himself became convinced that Oumauk was
master of the situation and he was persuaded to open the small
door where the bear's food was pushed in to him, in order that
Oumauk might pet Whitie more freely.
A curious crowd of white children had gathered about the outer
fence of the cage to view, with awe in their hearts and their eyes,
this strange scene of the small boy fondling the great head of the
white bear as fearlessly as he would have a large dog. The keeper
took special pains to explain to them that the bear had been the
boy's pet when he was small, and so knew him. But he warned all
the white children to keep well away from the den.
So each day Eiseeyou came to the hospital to visit Oumauk.
Later on the two went to the park to see the White Czar. This was
always the first place that they visited.
After that Oumauk was willing that they should see other things
of interest, but he never neglected Whitie.
"Whitie and I are both of us prisoners," he said sadly one day
when he was stroking the shaggy head of the Czar. "Whitie is a
prisoner in his great cage and I am a prisoner in the dark."
"He don't like the cage and I don't like the dark. I hope some day
we will both be free."
"When the doctor makes the light come again in the sun so I can
see, I want to come here the very first thing and see Whitie. Then
we must sell everything we have, and we will buy Whitie and go
back to Eskimo Land. That is where we all belong."
Eiseeyou bit his lip and looked troubled, but he thought the same
as Oumauk did. Eskimo Land was their home. They were out of
place in the great city of the white man. Every one had been good to
them, but they were out of place.
Thus three weeks went by. Each day Eiseeyou went to the
hospital to get Oumauk, after this the two went to the park to see
the White Czar, and then about the city sight-seeing. They visited
the parks, the museum, and even went into several theaters where
Eiseeyou was much amazed by the strange pictures. He was most
impressed when he saw a film of Eskimo Land, perhaps not his own
particular country, but other arctic country. The fur-clad people, the
dog teams and the komatiks, the seals, the walrus and the igloos
were all there. How the white men could have gotten it so faithfully
was a mystery to him. Then the automobiles, those strange
machines that seemed almost to run themselves, amazed him, as
did the telephone and the phonograph, both of which he saw men
using. The phonograph he deemed a machine bewitched, full of
devils, and he always crossed himself and hurried little Oumauk
away whenever he heard one playing in a store.
The hand organ seemed more harmless, and he and Oumauk
liked to listen to it, Eiseeyou was also much amused by the monkey
who held out his cap for small coins.
Whenever the two went abroad, they were usually followed by
curious children, who were much interested in Oumauk. They
seemed friendly, and often gave the Eskimo boy candy or fruit,
neither of which he had ever tasted before.
Finally the crucial day in both their lives came around. It was the
day when little Oumauk was to go under the knife in an attempt of
the great doctor to bring back the light in the sun and the stone
lamp. Eiseeyou was allowed to be with them in the operating room.
He sat by the bedside, holding Oumauk's hand all through the
operation.
Before the operation several doctors made a thorough
examination of Oumauk's eyes, and then talked for a time about the
case. Finally the surgeon came along and, patting the Eskimo boy on
the cheek, told him they were ready.
A rubber blanket was put under his head and shoulders, and one
doctor stood with a basin of water and sponges to wash away the
blood. First they put a strange instrument with six claws upon
Oumauk's eye. Each one of these six claws gripped the eye between
the muscle and kept it from moving during the operation. Then a
local anesthetic was administered, and the operation began.
Although the surgeon worked as carefully as he could, yet it hurt
poor Oumauk severely and great tears streamed down his swarthy
cheeks. Yet he did not even whimper. His own hard life in the
rigorous north, where men and even small children endure hardship
without complaining, stood him in good stead. When the right eye
had been operated upon, the left eye was treated in the same
manner.
 The doctors were generous in their praise of Oumauk's pluck and
this helped a little. When the operation was over, Oumauk asked if
he might open his eyes and see if the light had come back to the
sun. He was much troubled when they told him that he must wait
several days before the bandages could be removed.
This disappointment was so great that he did cry a little. But they
all told him that crying would hurt his chance of again seeing the
sun, so he soon stopped.
After that whenever he and Eiseeyou went forth, Oumauk had to
keep the bandage on his eyes, and it was darker than ever.
It seemed to Oumauk and Eiseeyou that the day when they would
take off the bandage would never come. But the clocks kept ticking
steadily on, and the hours going by, so at last the day arrived.
Oumauk himself was so excited that he shook like a leaf when the
doctors came into his ward. He had waited so patiently. The long
night had been so very long. He had groped about in the dark, it
seemed to him, for the whole of his life. At last the doctor gently
removed the bandage and told Oumauk that he might open his eyes.
"Oh, oh," cried Oumauk as his eyelids flew open, "I can see, I can
see, but not as I used to. Only a part of the light has come back to
the sun."
"That is all right, my boy. That is fine," cried the doctor, clapping
him on the shoulder. "I did not expect you would see very much
without glasses. You will always have to wear glasses."
Then he brought out some strange shiny things which went over
Oumauk's nose and behind his ears, and tried several glasses of
differing strength in them. Finally he found the right one and
Oumauk could see almost perfectly.
"That is fine. The operation is a great success," said the doctor.
"It is only a question of time when he will be all right."
The doctor rigged a shade for Oumauk's eyes, to wear above the
glasses. He advised him to keep out of the strong sun light for
several days and to get used to it gradually, and Eiseeyou promised
to look out for him.
Oumauk was all excitement to go and see Whitie at once, but the
doctor told them to wait until the morrow then to go towards dusk
when the sunlight was not so trying, so the Eskimo boy had to
possess his soul with patience till the morrow.
Eiseeyou confided to his son as they walked towards the park the
good news that the doctor had given his services for the operation
free; and that had cost them nothing. The charge at the hospital
was only going to be slight, so they had quite a sum of money left.
"Oh, good," cried Oumauk. "I feel so happy. Everything is coming
out all right. We will have almost enough money to buy Whitie.
Perhaps we can pay what we have and they will let us earn the rest
and send it to them. Maybe we can take Whitie back with us."
But Eiseeyou himself had many misgivings about the matter,
although he did not confide them to his son. He simply grunted and
smiled and said nothing.
Arrived at the park, they made their way hurriedly to the White
Czar's den, where they found that a large crowd of men, women,
and children were gathered around the den. All were talking and
much excited, especially the children with whom the White Czar had
become a great favorite. Eiseeyou could not tell what they were
saying, so he worked his way close up to the bear's den.
To his great astonishment, he found the door of the den open and
the White Czar gone. Oumauk was almost as quick to perceive what
had happened as he.
At the sight, a cry of pain escaped Oumauk. He put his hand to
his glasses and rubbed them to make sure. Then he turned eagerly
to his father.
"Oh, oh," he cried, "is Whitie really gone?"
"Yes," returned Eiseeyou. "He seems to be. Perhaps they have put
him in another den."
 "No," said the superintendent of the park, who happened to be
standing near. He had made the acquaintance of Eiseeyou and his
son one day by the cage and learned from them much of the bear's
history, so was interested in them.
"No, we have not put him in another den. He is gone, and I guess
for good. We found the door open this morning just as you see it
now, and the White Czar had disappeared.
"We have searched all day for him in the city, but he has
disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed him.
There has been foul play. He was let out, and I know who did it too.
I doubt very much if we ever see him again alive. He will turn up in
the province of Quebec sooner or later, then there will be a great
bear hunt and he will be shot."
Then seeing the terrified look upon Oumauk's face he hurried to
add, "Perhaps he will escape though. He was a clever bear. They will
often make their way through thickly settled country without being
seen. The province of Quebec is not very thickly settled to the north.
Perhaps he will escape."
"I know he will," said Eiseeyou, more to console Oumauk than
because he really believed so. Like the superintendent of the park,
he also believed that the White Czar would fall before some rifle
bullet before he had travelled far in this strange country, even if he
had gotten safely out of the city.
"It is strange," said the superintendent, patting Oumauk on the
shoulder, "that no one saw him here in the city. But it is only a short
distance to the river, down three streets and then along the broad
street leading to the docks. Perhaps he found the short cut."
"They are very clever," said Eiseeyou. "I guess he has escaped."
Then to Oumauk he said, "I know we will find him in Eskimo Land
when we get home. Come, let's go."
 CHAPTER XIII
THE FLIGHT NORTHWARD
When the White Czar found himself transferred from the plank
cage in which he had lived upon shipboard to the permanent den at
the park, he was better suited than he had been in the cage.
The den was much more commodious, and it had the additional
advantage of containing a swimming pool. After three or four days
he enjoyed the pool greatly. But his attitude towards it at first had
been very strange. He would lie upon his rock platform and look at
the water for hours. Finally he reached down very carefully with his
great white paw and touched it. Then he thrust his arm in to the
shoulder. Even then he did not venture into the water until he had
tested it by degrees. The truth was he was thinking of his last
terrible experience in the water when the rope had been thrown
about his neck, and he had been dragged so mercilessly after the
motor boat. Also his experience floating about in the cage on the
Atlantic had tended to make him suspicious of water. Water in which
he had always so revelled.
Finally however he was playing about in his pool and disporting
himself on the rocky shelf in his den with a playfulness that was
almost grotesque in so large an animal.
But it must not be imagined that the White Czar was satisfied
with his lot, or that he was contented to settle down for the rest of
his life in this twenty-five by twelve den. Not he.
He remembered too well the freedom of the broad icefloe and the
low lying barrens along the coast. He had seen too much of the
sparkling, tingling Arctic Ocean to ever rest in a stifling prison like
this.
 He simply made the best of his hard conditions and bided his
time. Few wild animals which have been captured when full grown,
as was the White Czar, ever become used to confinement. They may
look very tame and well content. But behind this seeming content
and docility is a terrible rage and hidden fire that will some day
break out and cost some one his life, or else the escape of the wild
creature at the first possible moment.
The White Czar was a great favorite with the children who
swarmed each day about his den to watch him playing in his pool or
stretching his great muscles on the rocks. No matter how small the
cage of a wild animal is, he always takes the proper amount of
exercise each day by stretching himself. So it was with the Czar. If
he ever got a chance to run for his life and his freedom, his muscles
must not be stiff.
The visit of Oumauk and Eiseeyou to the den each day was a
great comfort to the bear. He learned to time their coming, so that
he would always be standing at the bars watching for them when
they arrived. But his affection was all for Oumauk. Eiseeyou he had
viewed with a suspicion ever since the day when he had sat in the
stern of the motor boat and watched the cruel rope almost choke
the life out of him. He did not fully connect his capture with the
Eskimo, but in a dim sort of way he imagined that he was a party to
it.
The White Czar might have lived the rest of his life in the den,
admired by the children and with plenty to eat and comfortable
quarters; with everything but that priceless thing he most prized, his
freedom, had not a strange event intervened in his behalf.
The man who cared for the bear's den, including another den in
which were two large black bears, and also for the wolf and fox
dens, as well as the deer park, was a Scotchman named McAndrews.
He had general charge, but he was assisted by an Italian of hot
temper and treacherous disposition, named Tony Garibaldi—a good
name for a bad man.
 It was during the second year of the great war, and wages in all
departments of labor were very high. But Tony was seemingly not
satisfied, although he was getting a large wage. So he went to the
superintendent and asked for more pay.
The superintendent told him that he was not earning what he was
then receiving and if his wages were changed in any way, it would
be to scale them down. At this Tony became insolent and the
superintendent fired him.
Tony, who had really been well pleased with his present wage,
was furious and vowed vengeance. The form that his revenge took
quite amazed the officials of the park the next morning.
The night following Tony's discharge, the White Czar lay upon his
stone platform peacefully sleeping. The day had been very hot and
he was tired, not with any exercise, but with the confinement and
the heat. Presently he was aroused by hearing a noise near his den.
He opened his eyes and raised his great head. The dark, little man
who cleaned out his den each morning was at the bars.
Had he come to clean out the den? He had never done that at
night.
The White Czar was not sure. But he stretched himself and
plunged into his pool. If the den was to be cleaned, he would be
clean also.
When he climbed back on to his platform, he was much amazed
to discover that the large door through which the men always
entered his den was open. It was wide open, and the man who he
had supposed was to clean the den was standing several rods away.
At first the White Czar thought his eyes must be deceiving him, so
he went over and poked the door with his nose and smelled of it. It
certainly was open. But more than that. A breath of freedom, the
wind from the out of doors, free and untrammeled was blowing
through it. It was a north wind and it smelled of water.
 A thrill went through the great beast. Very cautiously he thrust his
head through the door. It did not catch him as he had half expected.
So he thrust his shoulders through and then passed outside. He
stretched himself and then reared on his hind legs and looked over
the fence that surrounded his den. The Italian was watching him.
But when a second later the great bear vaulted lightly over the
fence, the Italian took to his heels and ran as though his life
depended on his flight. He ran so far and so fast that he was never
seen in the city again.
But the White Czar paid no attention to him. He was looking up at
the starry heavens and smelling the free, fresh wind. He looked this
way and that, and finally decided. He would go towards the wind.
This was a very wise course on his part for it would lead him
through three deserted streets to the great river.
It was two o'clock in the morning. The early traffic had not yet
begun. At the entrance to the first street the great bear looked
warily down its strange, straight pavements and saw it was
deserted. So, with a shambling trot, his great claws rattling strangely
on the stones, he trotted to the end of the street. The second street
also was deserted, so down that he fled. The third street brought
him in sight of the river. The wharf at the end of this street was also
deserted, although the wharf next to it was quite busy where some
men were loading a steamer. But the White Czar was not looking for
men. He had seen enough of them to last him for the rest of his life,
so he glided silently along, keeping in the shadows whenever he
could. Finally, after considerable slinking and skulking on his part, he
reached the end of the wharf.
There he slipped almost as silently into the water as an otter
might have done, and sank from sight. When he next appeared, it
was only his head that showed and it was a hundred feet from the
wharf. After that his head might occasionally have been seen
popping up until he reached the middle of the channel. Then he
struck out boldly and swam for the northern shore.
 It was a five mile swim, for the great river that drains five of the
largest fresh water lakes in the world was broad here.
But the White Czar who is best of all swimmers among
quadrupeds made the distance in about half an hour. When he finally
struggled up on the bank, he shook himself and looking again at the
heavens tested the wind. It was a strange country to him. The cities
and towns of men, with their strange inventions were all about him.
Yet the wind and the sky were just the same everywhere. Man could
not change them. So the great bear was guided by them.
Of course he did not know the north star. Yet who shall say but
that this bright luminary had a message for him? There seemed to
be no affinity in the great bear's nose for the magnetic pole, yet that
also pulled him strangely. But most of all he felt the lure of the great
wilderness of the province of Quebec that primæval wilderness that
lies just beyond the boundaries of civilization. Few Americans
appreciate the fact that the province of Quebec stretches away to
the north of the great river for twelve hundred miles, before the
boundary of Labrador is reached.
It was the lure of this great wilderness, so much akin to his own
wild northland that the White Czar felt and he did not waste any
time in answering the call. For two hours he trotted steadily forward,
keeping away from the smooth, broad trails which smelled so
strongly of men. Henceforth this scent of man he would flee from
with all his strength.
So he guided his way in open fields and woods and kept out of
the sight and smell of everything that pertained to man. When the
stars began to pale, he crept into the very heart of a dense swamp
which the ingenuity of the Canadian farmers had not yet conquered,
and slept through the day. When darkness came, he crept forth
again and once more took up his steady untiring gallop northward.
He did not stop that night for anything to eat, he was too much
obsessed with the idea of flight. He must gallop and gallop and
gallop. So that night he covered over fifty miles. Again at the
approach of dawn he hid in the densest wood that he could discover.
There he once more slept away the daylight.
When the friendly night again appeared, he crawled out and fled
northward, and fifty more good English miles were put between him
and the great city from which he had escaped.
Just at dawn as he was thinking of finding a hiding place for the
day, he came out into an open pasture and smelled a scent which
was new to him; it was a strong animal scent.
Then the White Czar remembered that he was ravenously hungry.
He had come a hundred and twenty miles without food. So he
crept cautiously forward. Then a score of small white animals
jumped up almost in front of him and began running wildly about.
The sound they made was like the bleating of the seal pups.
At the thought of seal pups the White Czar's mouth fairly watered.
He had never even heard of sheep, but these small white
creatures looked and smelled good. So he made after them.
In a few seconds he was along side a large ewe, for the Czar had
surprised a flock of Canadian sheep. One blow from the great bear's
paw broke the sheep's back. The mighty hunter soon dispatched it
and then, seizing the dead sheep in his powerful jaws made for the
deep woods. That day he alternately slept and feasted upon mutton.
This was the first of many good meals that he made from sheep.
Two days later, at twilight, just as he was starting for his long
night gallop, he surprised his cousin, the black bear, feasting upon
something at the edge of the woods.
The White Czar was much surprised at the sight of this black bear.
All the bears he had ever seen had been white. But this bear was
much smaller than he, so he charged and put him to flight. He was
rewarded by finding the black bear had been feasting on a fawn
which he had just killed. So the white marauder finished the fawn
and went on his way rejoicing.
 On another occasion the White Czar also profited by the example
of the Black Cousin. This was when he discovered a black bear
fishing. He was sitting on a rock at the edge of the stream watching
the water intently. For some time the White Czar watched the black
bear but could not discover what he was doing.
But finally the paw of the black fisherman shot out, and a great
fish went flapping on to the low bank. The White Czar was much
surprised, but when the black bear fisherman caught the next fish,
the Czar rushed out and drove him away with such ferocity that he
forgot his fish and the Czar feasted upon it. After that he often
fished himself in the streams which ran into the sea.

The Czar rushed out and drove the black bear away.

The White Czar always travelled about ten miles inland. He did
not want to follow the sea coast, for he had discovered that men
lived along the coast. He would keep as far away from them as he
could and still keep in touch with the sea.
Then this wonderful country abounded in strange berries which
were delicious to the taste. This was another thing that the white
bear learned of his black cousin. There were also many roots which
were good eating. Altogether it was a wonderful country through
which the White Czar fled. But it was not his country. His home was
by the wild Arctic sea, upon the icefloe, amid the ice and snow. This
country was too tame, too warm, too comfortable.
He wanted something more boisterous, more difficult, something
against which he might pit his great strength.
Finally after about a month he came to a good-sized stream
where there were several beaver dams. He had also seen many
caribou signs that day, so he was beginning to feel at home.
The ptarmigan likewise were plenty. Surely he was coming into
his own.
This river did not look like the rivers he had crossed in his flight
through the province of Quebec. It was more rugged, more rocky.
The water ran more swiftly. It was more turbulent, like the racing
blood in the veins of the White Czar. With an exultance that he had
not felt since his capture two months before, the white bear plunged
into the river and swam it. The water swirled about him and he
battled with the current. It made him glad. Here was something to
fight. He reached the further bank and shook himself, then raised his
great head and sniffed the wind. There was a tang about it that he
had not smelled in many a week. It was fairly cold. It made him
distend his nostrils and take in great breaths. Did it smell of salt
water? Was it the open sea that he smelled? The great bear could
not tell. But one thing he did know. He was at home in Labrador at
last. The fell clutch of civilization would never again grip him. He was
back in his native wilds. He would come and go as he wished. No
mere man creature should ever again fling a rope over his great
head and drag him to that cramped cage. He would fight to the
death before that should happen again.
He was free, free, and would remain so, until the wild arctic winds
and the cold finally conquered him and he lay down to sleep with his
sires.